Salary vs cost of living

<p>I'm not close to graduating, however I came across an interesting article about cost of living that sparked my interest. It's probably not so relevant in today's job market, but here goes.</p>

<p>The article was a list of cities with the highest cost of living around the globe. The three US cities with the highest cost of living were New York, Los Angeles, and White Plains. It was said that New Yorkers have an average salary 65% above the national average along with a much higher cost of living. (ie: generally higher prices on most goods) This article brought a couple of issues to mind.</p>

<p>First, considering the large salary differences in some areas, it would seem that factoring in the cost of living in areas could be a very important consideration when deciding betweeng two jobs that otherwise look equally desirable but are in different areas of the country.</p>

<p>Second, something I heard in conversation recently brought to mind the following idea. If one were to take a job in a very high cost of living area such as White Plains but stashed away much of what they earned, they might later move to a lower cost of living area where their money had a much greater purchasing power. Out of casual interest, I plugged in engineering salaries in White Plains to simplyhired.com and it reported an avg salary of $80,000. However, if I plug in a lower cost of living area such as St Louis, an avg salary of $63,000 is returned. That's a $17,000 difference - pretty significant, although i'm not sure how accurate that website is. This makes me wonder just how much more well off a person would be in 30 years of working, given the higher cost of living of general expenses in areas with higher salaries.</p>

<p>I would work in St Lious over New York given those salaries. </p>

<p>You could have a mortgage for a 3 bedroom house in St Louis for the price of an efficiency in New York. The added cost of insurance, groceries and household goods leaves you with less to save than purchasing a house over in St Lious and working their for 30 years. </p>

<p>Not to mention the standard of living between the two cases tips highly towards St Louis.</p>

<p>There’s also intangibles and whatnot to take into account when you’re talking about living in an area. Personally, I’d hate to have to commute to work in heavy traffic, so I’d much rather live in Omaha than Los Angeles even if I might be putting a little bit extra away each year.</p>

<p>when you are working in a famous state, like new york
im sure the cost of living there is very high.</p>

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