National Real Estate News: 5 States With Highest, Lowest Cost of Living!

Here is some interesting information about cost of living rates in the US. No surprise to any of us......California ranks in the top tier. You'll also notice that the entire state is mentioned and not just individual cities! We live in a great state but we pay the price for housing, goods and services! Read on......

Just how widely can the cost of living vary from state to state? Financial website GoBankingRates.com culled 2016 data from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center, examining six categories of living expenses: housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous items. The site used the data to calculate each state's overall cost of living index.

Hawaii is the priciest state to live in, where cost-of-living expenses are 67.4 percent higher than the national average, according to the analysis. Housing costs in the state top the national average by 130 percent, the study shows.On the other end of the spectrum, the cost of living in Mississippi is the lowest in the U.S.—14 percent below the national average, according to GoBankingRates.com's study. Housing costs there are 31.6 percent cheaper than the national average, and groceries are nearly 6 percent less.

According to GoBankingRates.com, the states with the highest cost of living in the U.S. are:

• Hawaii

• Washington,

• D.C.

• New York

• California

• Massachusetts

Meanwhile, the states with the lowest cost of living in the U.S. are:

• Mississippi

• Indiana

• Michigan

• Arkansas

• Oklahoma

Source: “From California to New York: The Cost of Living Across America,” GoBankingRates.com (May 11, 2017)

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