This State Has the Highest Cost of Living

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 25, 10:30AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

This State Has the Highest Cost of Living — © Hispanolistic / E+ via Getty Images

Many items that Americans buy regularly have become more expensive recently. The consumer price index issued by the U.S. Department of Labor rose 7% in December. That was the fastest pace since 1982. The figure is expected to stay high through at least this year, driven largely by supply change slowdowns. Among the items Americans have paid for the most recently are cars and gasoline, the prices of which have risen as much as 40%.

Inflation is not the only challenge some Americans face as they try to earn enough money for key items like food, fuel, housing and health care. A total of 11.4% of people in the United States live in poverty. In many places, these people have trouble affording their most basic financial needs.

The U.S. median household income was $67,521 in 2020, according to the Census Bureau. This figure varies considerably by state. The median household income in Mississippi is $45,792. Topping the list, the figure in Maryland is $86,738.

While these figures indicate the incomes people have to cover their basic needs, another factor is the cost of living. This number comes close to matching median household income by state. That makes sense. Expensive goods and services would not sell well in Mississippi.
[nativounit]
The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center looked at the cost of living by state in the third quarter of 2021. It set up an index based on grocery, housing, utility, transportation and health care costs.

The state with the highest cost of living index was Hawaii at 185.6. The cost of housing there was unusually high. The figure for the next state, California, was much lower, and the state with the closest figure to 100, the U.S. average, was Pennsylvania at 100.5.

These are the 10 states with the highest costs of living:

Hawaii (185.6)
California (146.9)
New York (143.7)
Massachusetts (132.5)
Oregon (127.5)
Alaska (125.7)
Maryland (121.4)
Connecticut (119.5)
New Jersey (118.3)
Rhode Island (115.8)

Click here to see the cities where buying a house is most expensive.
[wallst_email_signup]

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.