# I didn't know I had it so good (cost of living) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 15, 2005, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800 "2005-01-15T01:15:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/21 "2005-01-16T03:43:44Z")
> [@Ringo](#): > > I’d imagine is one of the highest sales tax rates in the U.S. (8.25%) 9.75% here. Sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/22 "2005-01-16T07:29:15Z")
Ringo, as someone with experience in both Houston and NYC, I’d say 238% sounds about right. Prices in Houston are noticably cheaper than they are where I live now and people in NYC move to where I am now (about fifty miles from NYC) because they find the prices here noticably cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/23 "2005-01-16T07:29:01Z")
Ours is only 9% here, but we have other special taxes when we go out to eat or go to a deli (and there are 2 other big places where the tax is higher) that make the sales tax 11%. And it’s actually gone _down_ in the last few months. Buy a double cheeseburger at our McDonald’s and it’ll cost ya 1.11. Ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/24 "2005-01-16T07:54:55Z")
Here’s a game that NYC residents will find amusing. Go to the Houston Chronicle website and click to their classified section. Go the the real estate page and click on houses for sale. Set in an upper limit of $50,000 (that’s not a typo) and click search. AND THERE ARE TWENTY PAGES OF LISTINGS. You’ll laugh until you cry. ---
**Author:** ![Telperien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@Telperien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperien)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/25 "2005-01-16T08:09:45Z")
I think the crying might come earlier than that. I live in an area with a fairly low cost of living. You can get a pretty nice house for less than $100,000. My parents rent, but buying the house they live in would probably cost $70,000, if that. Don’t be too choked up, though–think of where you’d have to live if you bought it. Disclaimer: I love Louisiana. Really. I’m only kidding. But not about the prices. To maintain the same purchasing power, a salary of $ 20,000 in Lake Charles LA needs to be $18,992.64 in Houston TX In going from Lake Charles LA to Houston TX Grocery items are 2.55% lower Housing is 22.272% lower Utilities are 7.512% higher Transportation is 11.514% higher Health care is 15.218% higher Misc goods/services are 0.931% lower Just for fun, let me try Philadelphia, since I used to live about twenty or so miles from there. To maintain the same purchasing power, a salary of $ 20,000 in Lake Charles LA needs to be $25,032.65 in Philadelphia PA In going from Lake Charles LA to Philadelphia PA Grocery items are 23.633% higher Housing is 26.854% higher Utilities are 26.896% higher Transportation is 33.178% higher Health care is 34.687% higher Misc goods/services are 20.267% higher Now for San Francisco. I have a feeling I won’t like this. To maintain the same purchasing power, a salary of $ 20,000 in Lake Charles LA needs to be $35,187.07 in San Francisco CA In going from Lake Charles LA to San Francisco CA Grocery items are 39.436% higher Housing is 186.99% higher Utilities are 14.046% higher Transportation is 35.561% higher Health care is 69.753% higher Misc goods/services are 18.539% higher I just picked $20,000 as a random salary. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/26 "2005-01-16T19:10:37Z")
Re: The Bonfire of the Vanities and Lexington, KY That was written quite some time ago, and while prices in Lexinton have risen quite a lot in that interim, I doubt the cost of living increases have kept pace with Manhattan. It’s quite possible that at the time of writing, things were such that the author was quite correct. Does anyone know where we could get cost-of-living comparisons for that time frame? ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/27 "2005-01-16T23:55:46Z")
We were planning on buying this year after our lease expires. Since I can live anywhere in California and still do my job (I work form home) I was really intersted in these caluculators. According to [Salary.Com](http://Salary.Com) if I move to Sacramento or Stockton it would be like giving my self a 10k raise. Yipee! ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/28 "2005-01-17T00:05:01Z")
I live in Austin rather than Houston. More expensive? Yes. Worth it? Heck, yeah! ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/29 "2005-01-17T04:53:58Z")
**Laughing Lagomorph** said: > [@](#): > > It is strange that a lot of prominent metropolitan areas aren’t listed…I wonder how they chose which cities they did? I wondered about that, as well. Perhaps it’s somehow based on using cities that are seeing the most population growth or decline? Also, the list is not alphabetized very tightly, so if you missed your city, look again (but, no, Detroit is not there). **Shalmanese** said, in reply to **Laughing Lagomorph** : > [@](#): > > Because investments mature independant of location. Thanks, that _is_ what I meant. While I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, I _do_ have to wonder how a city as huge as Houston could be so much cheaper to live in. As I said above, recent examination of real estate prices have left me slack-jawed. While **Little Nemo** is correct that there are $50K houses, my visits with a real estate agent (friend since junior high) found mostly houses (_not_ mansions) in the $480-590K range, with the cheapest being a one bedroom house for $276K. We have some high taxes, but we don’t have a state income tax. Also, we’ve defeated zoning (yay!) pretty soundly every time it’s come up, and I _do_ recall a HUD paper that reported zoning accounting for as much as 30% of the local cost of living. Another thing that I’m just guessing might be a factor is that some older cities, such as San Francisco and Chicago, are physically hemmed in while we’re perched on the edge of the coastal plains and have historically had City Councils that have been much enthralled with emminent domain. And, it’s a younger city in many ways. Austin, when I lived there for many years during the 1970s, enjoyed the reputation of being one of the cheapest places to live in the U.S. But that began to end with the electronics/computer boom that started the week after I left in January of 1981. Now, while it still has the lakes and the music scene, it’s a big city (~4x the size as when I lived there) with an infrastructure that is struggling to catch up. Still, though, while a bit (8-9%) more expensive than Houston, compare it to San Francisco, LA or Manhattan. ---
**Author:** ![archmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@archmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/archmichael)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800/30 "2005-01-18T14:09:39Z")
> [@Laughing Lagomorph](#): > > It is strange that a lot of prominent metropolitan areas aren’t listed…I wonder how they chose which cities they did? Checked “Data provided by”. It is a company that compiles CoL indexes on a quarterly basis, and sells that info. So they are giving a taste of the index, without giving away most of the major cities. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-didnt-know-i-had-it-so-good-cost-of-living/284800.md?page=1)