San Francisco has the highest cost of living, while St. Louis is the cheapest city

Greater San Francisco has the highest cost of living in the United States, requiring an after-tax salary of $84,000 to live comfortably – compared to a low of $57,000 in St. Louis.

A study of the country’s 25 largest metropolitan areas shows that the ten most expensive places to live are on the east or west coast.

The area with the lowest cost of living is Greater St. Louis, which spans Missouri and Illinois. Closely followed by the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area in Michigan, where a salary of $58,358 is needed to live comfortably.

At the other end of the scale, New York unsurprisingly made the top five, along with the metropolitan area that includes Boston and Cambridge in affluent Massachusetts.

SmartAsset researchers, who conducted the study, based the numbers on the 50/30/20 rule, which spends 50% of a salary on essential expenses, 30% on “wishes,” and 20% on savings. They used the MIT Living Wage Calculator to calculate the basic cost of living for a single person with no children.

SmartAsset researchers calculated the salary required to live comfortably in America’s 25 largest metropolitan areas. St. Louis is the cheapest, while the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area is the most expensive

The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metropolitan area is the most expensive in the US

The area with the lowest cost of living is Greater St. Louis, which spans Missouri and Illinois

Financial planner Susannah Snider said, “A budget is the foundation of many people’s financial plans. And it’s especially important to understand and track your spending when the cost of everyday items increases.

“If you can stick to a 50/30/20 budget, you’ll have enough to fund short- and long-term goals while also paying for essential living expenses.”

California’s San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad metropolitan area ranked second with an after-tax annual salary of $79,324 required to live comfortably. That allows for $39,662 for “needs,” $23,797 for “wants,” and $15,865 for savings and debt payments.

Third was the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metropolitan area in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where someone needs a salary of $78,752.

Fourth is the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area ($78,524), and the top five was completed by Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue in Washington state, where the annual after-tax salary for a comfortable living is $77,634 dollars fraud.

New York, Massachusetts, California and Washington are the four richest states in America in terms of gross domestic product per capita.

SmartAsset has calculated what salary it takes to live comfortably in each of America’s 25 largest metropolitan areas

The study follows another by SmartAsset, which calculated the purchasing power of a $100,000 paycheck in various US states after taxes and cost-of-living adjustments.

The salary goes furthest in Memphis, Tennessee, while New York City is the worst city in the United States to live on, this study found.

In Memphis, the take-away value of the six-figure salary combined with the local cost of living equates to about $86,000, while in New York City it equates to only about $35,000.

The chilling data was compiled by examining state and local taxes, local living costs and the impact of recent inflation to determine which cities were the cheapest and most expensive to live in.

Seven of the ten cheapest cities — where $100,000 went the furthest — were in Texas, while six of the most expensive cities were in California and the West Coast.

The data showed that state and local taxes in Memphis reduced a $100,000 paycheck to $74,515 in cash. Adjusted for the local cost of living — which was a full 14 percent below the national average — $100,000 went the furthest from any city in the country.

According to a study, the Detroit, Michigan metro area has the second lowest cost of living in America

In the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metropolitan area, which spans Massachusetts and New Hampshire, someone needs a salary of $78,752. Pictured: Boylston Street, near Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts

A separate study by SmartAsset found that cities in the center of the country offer the best value in terms of cost of living and taxes, while coastal cities are the most expensive

The second best city to live in on a $100.00 paycheck was El Paso, Texas, where data showed the cost of living was 87.7 percent of the national average. There, taxes reduced cash receipts from $100,000 to $74,515, but adjusted for the cost of living, which equaled $84,966.

Oklahoma City was third best, with a take-home of $70,302, less living expenses of $84,498.

Next came Corpus Cristi, Texas, where the cost of living was 10.7 percent below the national average. There, $100,000 was worth about $83,443.

Lubock, Texas taxes reduced $100,000 to $74,515. The city’s cost of living was 89.4 percent of the national average, converting that net worth to $83,350.

In Houston, Texas, the cost of living was 91.8 percent of the national average. $100,000 decreased through taxes to $74,515, resulting in a cost-of-living adjusted value of $81,350.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk