Skip to main content

DC area is ‘best of both worlds’ with cost of living, study shows

By Nick Iannelli

A lot of people in the D.C. area have anxiety about the cost of living, but a new report from the financial services company Bankrate shows other markets are a tougher road for those who want to build savings and strengthen buying power.

“Most Americans are quick to pay attention to how much in taxes gets taken out of their paycheck, but another factor that really impacts their take home pay is cost of living,” said Sarah Foster, an economic analyst at Bankrate.

After analyzing the top 25 largest metropolitan regions in the nation, Bankrate determined that the mean of annual wages in the D.C. area was around $81,000 after being adjusted for the cost of living.

The report ranked D.C. as the eighth-most expensive metro area in the country for cost of living.

That was second-highest in the country behind only San Francisco, where that figure was about $82,000. The toll from cost of living was much higher in San Francisco relative to D.C., however.

“What we used for this was data showing cost of living through the Department of Commerce,” Foster said. “A lot of it is coming down to housing, groceries, essentials, insurance costs — items that people are likely going to allocate money in their budgets toward.”

According to the report, the San Francisco area had the highest cost of living in the country, causing people’s buying power to be 15.4% lower than their wages every year.

In Los Angeles, cost of living led to a 13.4% drop in buying power. It was an 11.5% drop in Seattle, an 11.1% drop in New York, and a 10.6% drop in Miami.

The District, on the other hand, registered a 7.9% drop in buying power due to cost of living.

In other words, according to those figures, people in the San Francisco area making $100,000 had about $85,000 in buying power, while those in the D.C. region making $100,000 had about $92,000 in buying power.

“D.C. might be best described as one of those cities that’s a little bit of the best of both worlds,” Foster said. “San Francisco had that huge bite out of the cost of living, whereas the cost of living bite that the average worker is experiencing in the D.C. metro area is considerably smaller.”

Massachusetts court hears arguments in lawsuit alleging Meta designed apps to be addictive to kids

By The Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts' highest court heard oral arguments Friday in the state's lawsuit arguing that Meta designed features on Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to young users. The lawsuit, filed in 2023 by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, alleges that Meta did this to make a profit and that its actions affected hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Massachusetts who use the social media platforms. “We are making claims based only on the tools that Meta has developed because its own research shows they encourage addiction to the platform in a variety of ways,” said State Solicitor David Kravitz, adding that the state's claim has nothing to do the company's algorithms or failure to moderate content. Meta said Friday that it strongly disagrees with the allegations and is “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.” Its attorney, Mark Mosier, argued in court that the lawsuit “would impose liabilities for performing traditional publishing functions” and that its actions are protected by the First Amendment.
Read Next Story