These Are the US Cities With the Highest and Lowest Cost of Living.

Living costs continue to squeeze budgets everywhere (thanks to inflation), but of course, not all cities experience these costs equally. According to the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) , which publishes a quarterly cost of living index for 269 metropolitan areas, there is a wide gap between the U.S. cities with the highest and lowest costs of living.

The index covers the cost of housing, utilities, food, transportation, healthcare and various goods and services. The national average is rated at 100, so areas with higher indexes are more expensive than average, while those below 100 are cheaper.

As you might expect, the most expensive cities are mostly located on or near the Northeast and West coasts, while the cheapest (usually) are in the South and Midwest. With an index of 227.8 (more than twice the national average), Manhattan alone significantly outpaces the cost of living of all other cities on the list, including expensive regions like Honolulu, San Jose and San Francisco. Axios has a helpful map visualizing the entire list .

US cities with the highest cost of living

These are the 10 most expensive urban areas and their cost of living index:

1. New York (Manhattan): 227.8

2. Honolulu: 179.2

3. San Jose, California: 171.3

4. San Francisco, California: 169.5.

5. New York (Brooklyn): 159.7

6. Orange County, California: 151.2

7. Boston: 148.0

8. Los Angeles-Long Beach: 147.3

9. Seattle: 145.7

10. Washington, DC: 145.3

US cities with lowest cost of living

These are the 10 least expensive areas and their cost of living index:

1. Decatur, Illinois: 77.0

2. Harlingen, Texas: 79.7

3. McAllen, Texas: 80.2

4. Ponca City, Oklahoma: 80.4

5. Augusta-Aiken, GA-SC: 82.8

6. Anniston-Calhoun County, Alabama: 83.0

7. Florence, Alabama: 83.0

8. Ashland, Ohio: 83.0

9. Conway, Arkansas: 83.1

10. Tupelo, Miss: 83.1

Housing and Food Trends

C2ER further broke down the most and least expensive cities for housing and food and found trends similar to the overall list. Manhattan – unsurprisingly – is the most expensive place to rent an apartment, followed by Boston, Honolulu, Brooklyn and San Francisco. The cheapest places to rent an apartment are Ponca City, Oklahoma; Pittsburgh, Kansas; Decatur, Illinois; Florence, Alabama; and Sumter, South Carolina. The national average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,547, up 8.4% from the previous year.

Meanwhile, food is most expensive in California (San Francisco and San Diego) and Alaska (Fairbanks, Juneau and Anchorage), and cheapest in the Dakotas, Louisiana and Nebraska.

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