New study ranks NJ the 6th most expensive state in the U.S.

You live in New Jersey? You don’t need a study to tell you that we’re living in a state that is very freaking expensive to live in. But just how do we compare to the rest of the country?

I’d feel better about living here if I thought that we were somewhere in the middle of the pack, compared to all the other states when it comes to the cost of living here. But the fact is, we’re close to the top of the heap. The 6th most expensive state to live in, in fact.

Scholaroo just released the results of the first study to examine the cost of living in all 50 states. The formula is interesting. It ranks states across 31 metrics in 9 key categories.

Those 9 categories are expenditures that exist in every single state:

1. Living Expenses

2. Personal Expenses

3. Taxes & Income

4. Health Cost

5. Education Cost

6. Loans & Credit Card Bill

7. Insurance Cost

8. Telecommunications Cost

9. Travel Cost

Then, they gave point values for each of these.

After all of this, they determined which state has the highest cost of living.

This study ranked the cheapest states to live in, and New Jersey ranked 45th. I flipped it upside down which made NJ the sixth most expensive state to live in. To reiterate: this study ranks New Jersey as the 45th cheapest state to live in. Conversely, it’s the 6th most expensive, being one of the least affordable states to live in the country this year.

Their mathematical formula calculated the country’s main expenses—average median annual income, average cost of rent, average gym, cost, average loan debt, average health, car and life insurance cost, average mortgage cost and average cable and internet cost.

Here’s how NJ ranked, with #1 considered the best and #50 the worst:

#45 Loans & Credit Card Bill: $2,815 average cost per month

#45 Telecommunications Cost: $414 average cost per month

#42 Living Expenses: $1,813 average monthly expense

#45 Personal Expenses: $185 average monthly expense

#22 Income: $89,703 average annual income

#45 Health Cost: $961 average monthly expense

#25 Insurance Cost: $3,320 average cost per month

This study’s results aren’t surprising. But somehow, seeing it by the numbers makes it even more frustrating.

To see all of the numbers, the various metrics and to compare us to other states, see the whole study here.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.

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