Methodology & Data Sources
Living Cost Compare is built to answer one question as accurately as free public data allows: what does it actually cost to live in a given US city? Every number on the site traces back to a named government or public data source below — we don't estimate, survey, or crowdsource prices ourselves.
Who we are
Living Cost Compare is an independent, ad-free-at-launch project run by a small team focused on making US cost-of-living data easy to compare. We have no affiliation with any city, state, real estate company, or relocation service. Questions or corrections: hello@livingcostcompare.com.
Data sources
Every figure on a city, state, region, or comparison page comes from one of the sources below, fetched via public APIs or published data files by scripts we run and re-run as sources update.
Rent (studio/1BR/2BR/3BR), median home value, median household income, age, homeownership, education, commute time
Update cadence: Annual release; we re-pull on each refresh
Metro-area median annual wage, all occupations
Update cadence: Annual
Grocery basket (milk, bread, eggs, ground beef, chicken, bananas), by Census region
Update cadence: Monthly; we use the latest available
Average annual temperature, annual precipitation
Update cadence: 1981–2010 30-year normals (updated on NOAA’s own decadal schedule)
Regular gasoline price, residential electricity rate, residential natural gas price
Update cadence: Gas: weekly. Electricity/gas rates: monthly/annual, state-level
Violent and property crime rate per 100,000 residents, primary police agency
Update cadence: Annual; latest year with the primary agency reporting
State sales tax rate, state top marginal income tax rate
Update cadence: Annual (2026 rates)
Adult base one-way fare on each city’s primary transit agency
Update cadence: Manually reviewed against each agency’s current fare page
How derived numbers are calculated
- Monthly cost estimate= one-bedroom rent + typical residential electricity (≈855 kWh/mo) + typical natural gas (≈2 MCF/mo), at each city's or state's own utility rates. It excludes food, transport, healthcare, and childcare — it is a baseline, not a full cost of living.
- State and region medians are medians across the cities we track in that state/region, not population-weighted statewide or regional figures. A state with one tracked city shows that city's own numbers as the "median."
- "Salary needed" figures use the common budgeting rule of thumb that rent should be about 30% of gross income (annual salary ≈ monthly rent × 12 ÷ 0.3). It is a general guideline, not financial advice.
- Crime comparisons are approximate: reporting practices and agency boundaries vary across police departments, so rates are best read as a rough signal, not an exact ranking.
- Tax rates shown are state-level; local sales taxes can add more, and the income tax shown is the top marginal rate — most filers pay less than that rate.
Corrections
Public data has errors, revisions, and lag. If you spot a number that looks wrong or out of date, email hello@livingcostcompare.com with the page and what looks off, and we'll check it against the source.