Example: I live in Oklahoma and lets say I have a friend who work in San Francisco. We both order the same thing on Amazon that costs $300. Does that $300 work to out to mean the same amount for us somehow? PSA: I say “universally” to mean across a country/region, where you can have many different costs of living, but things bought online would cost the same.
In: Economics
I think you’re asking why “cost of living” is higher in some states despite the fact that many products are priced identically in all states.
The reason is that the really expensive stuff isn’t the same price. Your $300 monitor may cost the same in OK and SF. But the SF house costs $2m while the OK house costs $200k. Since a greater portion of income covers housing, the fact that housing is so much more in SF more than makes up for the fact that lots of stuff costs the same.
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