Data Catalog

Dataset: Cost of Living Index

Description

The cost of living UMI makes available is designed to answer the question "how do urban areas compare in the cost of maintaining a standard of living appropriate for moderately affluent professional and managerial households?" The index is designed to compare the costs of a particular standard of living in all areas, and it does not matter whether that standard of living is typical of the population of a specific area.

Variables used to calculate the Composite Index include, Grocery, Housing, Utilities, Transportation, Health Care, and Goods and Services. This dataset is associated with various Metropolitan/Micropolitan Statistical Areas polled across the United States.

Collection Methodology

The Cost of Living Index is designed to provide the best possible means to compare cost of living differences among urban areas based on the price of consumer goods and services appropriate for professional and managerial households in the top income quintile.

The COLI rests on the premise that prices collected at a specified time, in strict conformance with standard specifications, provide a sound basis for constructing a reasonably accurate gauge of relative differences in the cost of consumer goods and services.

Consumer expenditures cover an almost limitless range of goods and services, and no index of consumer buying can encompass all of them. The index divides consumer expenditures into categories, then selects items that represent those categories. The items used in the COLI thus are surrogates for entire categories of consumer spending. For this approach to work, price differences among urban areas for the items in the Index must accurately reflect differences for the categories they represent.

The Index consists of six major categories: grocery items, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous goods and services. These major categories in turn are composed of subcategories, each of which is represented by one or more items in the Index. Separate component indexes are published for each of the six major categories. The 60 items have been chosen solely to show inter-area price differences in the categories they represent. In calculating the Index, the ratio of an urban area’s average price to the average price of the same item nationwide is measured. When using a pound of whole frying chicken to represent poultry products, it is assumed that if an area’s price for this item is 10% above the nationwide average, its prices for poultry products as a whole also are about 10% above the nationwide average.

How much the ratio for each item contributes to the Index is determined by the distribution of consumer expenditures among the categories covered by the Index. The share of consumer spending devoted to the category each item represents determines that category’s importance, or weight, in the Index. Weights based on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2004 Consumer Expenditure Survey have been adopted, using the data on the proportional distribution of expenditures by households in which the reference person has a professional or managerial occupation and by households in the upper quintile of income.

Data published for the first three quarters are based on prices submitted by all participating areas. Beginning in February 2008, annual average surveys compiled from data submitted in those previous quarters were created. For urban areas where we have data less than three pricing periods, estimated prices were used to have a complete set of observations. Thus, to calculate the annual average index, the actual and estimated prices as our observations to calculate an annual average price for each item are used. Prices are not weighted when observed. Thus, first pricing period prices receive the same weight in the calculation as third pricing period prices. Then, from the annual average price for each item, the index is calculated using the same BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey weights that one would for any other pricing period.

Price Reporting C2ER stringently reviews all prices reported, and attempts to eliminate errors and noncompliance with pricing specifications. All price data are obtained from sources deemed reliable, but no representation is made as to the complete accuracy thereof. They are published subject to errors, omissions, changes, and withdrawals without notice.

Exclusion of Taxes C2ER is fully cognizant that state and local taxes are an integral part of the cost of living, and that tax burdens vary widely not only among states and metropolitan areas, but even within each metropolitan area. Due to the multiplicity of state and local taxes, taxing jurisdictions, and assessment procedures, it is not feasible to calculate local tax burdens reliably. C2ER has opted to produce an index which adequately measures differences in goods and services costs, rather than to produce an inaccurate measure which attempts to incorporate taxes levied on real and intangible property, retail sales, and income.

Detailed methodology and product documentation is available from C2ER.

General Business Terms

This dataset is available as part of the core Mapfluence offer.

Attribution Policy

Developers must include attribution link and text as follows: Map data © 2010 Urban Mapping Inc and/or other parties when developing applications.

Attribution Text

© 2010 C2ER

Time Period

2009-Present

Geographic Scope

United States

Lowest Geography

MSA

Attribute Tables

Cost of Living Trailing Year Average (us_coli.yr_avg)

Average numbers combined over the trailing year.

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Cost of Living Trailing Year Index (us_coli.yr_ind)

Index numbers combined over the trailing year.

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Cost of Living Quarterly Index (us_coli.qrtr_ind)

Index numbers for a particular quarter.

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Cost of Living Quarterly Average (us_coli.qrtr_avg)

Average numbers for a particular quarter.

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