What is Cost of Living?

Cost of living is the amount of money necessary for you to sustain a certain standard of living in a particular location. This information is especially useful if you are in the process of looking for another city to relocate to or are considering moving to a specific city and you would like to know if you can actually afford to live there. In general, the basic expenses included in determining the cost of living for a particular location are housing costs, goods and services, food and groceries, utilities, transportation expenses, healthcare, and taxes.

The cost of living index features an informative snapshot that lists all the basic expenses and their corresponding cost estimates in two or more locations over a period of time. It shows the percentage variance of the cost of these basic expenses across the locations being compared. For the primary location, the values for all expenses are fixed at 100, while the values for the cities or states that are being compared to the primary location may be higher or lower than 100, depending on whether the costs in these areas are higher or lower than those of the primary location.

For example, if you are currently living in Idaho and you are thinking of relocating to Maryland, the cost of living index for all the basic expenses for your current state which is Idaho would be 100, while the figures for Maryland would be more or less than 100, depending on whether the cost of the items being compared to those of Idaho are more expensive or cheaper in Maryland.

2019 Cost of Living Index in Maryland

If you are considering relocating to Maryland, it would be advantageous for you to do your own research and find out the cost of living index in this state before you make a decision. We have prepared the table below to show you the cost of living in Maryland relative to the cost of living of rest of the nation. In this table, the primary location is the United States, so all the values for the expenses here are fixed at 100, while the values for Maryland show the actual percentage values of the basic expenses in this state.