Cost of living by state, 2024

What the cost-of-living index measures

The ranking above uses Regional Price Parities from the Bureau of Economic Analysis — the federal government's official measure of how price levels differ across the country. Each state's figure is expressed relative to a national average of 100. A state at 108 is about 8% more expensive than the US as a whole; a state at 90 is roughly 10% cheaper. Because it draws on a broad basket of goods and services, it captures the everyday cost of living far better than any single price, like a gallon of gas or a loaf of bread, ever could.

The components tell you why a state ranks where it does. Housing — specifically rents — is the largest source of variation, which is why expensive states are almost always expensive because of housing rather than groceries. Goods prices, by contrast, barely move from state to state, since most products are shipped nationally. Utilities and other services fall in between. Sorting by each column shows how differently the states stack up depending on which cost you care about most.

A high cost of living isn't automatically bad, and a low one isn't automatically good. What matters is how prices compare with local wages: a state where pay outpaces prices leaves you better off than a cheaper state where it doesn't. To see that, pair this ranking with median income and the cost-adjusted salary figures elsewhere on the site.