If you’ve ever wondered how, on an episode of “House Hunters,” a butterfly therapist and a stay-at-home astronaut have a home buying budget of $3.2 million, then you have a sense of the cost of living concept.
It’s a metric studied by organizations like the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a bipartisan legislative agency resource for rural policy within the General Assembly.
The center first studied the cost of living in Pennsylvania counties in 1992, updating the study again in 2000 and 2018 before its most recent 2023 report.
The Cost-of-Living Index (COLI) data used for the study is produced by the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). The index includes costs related to groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, healthcare and other miscellaneous expenses.
The base index is 100, indicating the national average. A state or county with an index greater than 100 has a higher cost of living than the national average.
With an index of 102.1, Pennsylvania was 2.1% costlier than the national average — making it the 25th costliest state in the nation. Arizona (102.5), Virginia (102.5), Minnesota (102.4), and Florida (101.3) had relatively similar costs of living.
Since the study’s most recent update in 2018, prices in the Keystone State have grown by 23.2 percent but Pennsylvania remains the lowest-cost state in the northeast region. The western and southern United States saw even bigger increases at 26.7 and 25.3 percent, respectively.
By county, McKean clocked in at 99.0, Potter at 100.4, Elk at 103.8 and Cameron at 104.5. Forest County recorded the lowest index in the commonwealth at 93.8, 6.2% below the national average. Philadelphia County, unsurprisingly, had the highest at 128.5.
As most rural residents know, it costs more to reside in an urban county compared to a rural one. The study found it’s an average of 6.3% more expensive in urban areas.
Bradford Mayor Tom Riel said, “We’re aware that the cost of living in the Bradford area is lower than many places. We’ve seen, since covid, a lot of people from all over the country move to the Bradford area.
“One couple sold their home outside of Baltimore, Maryland, for far more money than they spent on getting a much better home here,” Riel recounted. “We also had a lot of people coming over from New York state because of the taxes.”
New York’s index registered at 112.3, more than 10% higher than Pennsylvania, but still nowhere near Hawaii (149.6), California (134.9) or Massachusetts (132.4).
States with the lowest cost-of-living indices included Missouri (90.6), Arkansas
(90.6) and Mississippi (88.5).
The report concluded, “Relocation to a place with a lower cost of living can mean an immediate increase in “real” (price-adjusted) income or standard of living, which can make rural areas more attractive. Combined with other factors like quality of life, proximity to family, recreational opportunities and many others, cost of living could be the deciding factor for individuals considering relocation. As policymakers and the public consider policies to address Pennsylvania’s projected population decline through 2050, consideration should be given to the relatively lower cost of living in rural areas, which may incentivize people and businesses to move there.”
The report further cautioned against interpreting Pennsylvania’s lower cost of living index compared to 2017 as a decline in expenses.
“Rather, the commonwealth’s cost of living in comparison with the rest of the nation declined. In other words, the cost of living for areas outside of Pennsylvania increased at a more rapid rate.”
