cost of living

based on the location, the cost of living will almost always be different.

there are three main factors to determining cost of living for a certain area: Supply and Demand factors reflected on the salary ranges for a particular city, state taxes and regional Consumer Price Index (CPI) information.

for example, if i lived in Galesburg, IL and made $30,000 a year, in order to live the same kind of lifestyle in Manhatten, NY i would need to make over $68,000 a year. this is due in large part because the housing costs 368% more than it does in galesburg.

in new york, because there are so many people living there, the stores can afford to put the prices high because they know that the consumers will pay it.


http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.html, www.bls.gov/cpi/