Cost of Living Red vs Blue States

This will be a list of all states and D.C. showing the cost of living from lowest to highest. Some of these states are up for debate whether they are Red or Blue, and feel free to dispute some of them. I believe that this shows a clear trend that living in a Red state is much cheaper and explains why homelessness appears to be a much larger issue in Blue states (semi-response to another thread about homelessness). It is also meant to show how drastically the two styles of governing affect the prices of goods, housing, utilities, etc.

B: Blue

S: Swing

R: Red

1 Mississippi (R)

2 Arkansas (R)

3 Oklahoma (R)

4 Missouri (R)

5 New Mexico (B)

6 Tennessee (R)

7 Michigan (B)

8 Kansas (R)

9 Georgia (R)

10 Wyoming (R)

11 Alabama (R)

12 Indiana (R)

13 Iowa (R)

14 Nebraska (R)

15 Ohio (S)

16 Kentucky (R) 

17 West Virginia (R)

18 Texas (R)

19 Idaho (R)

20 Louisiana (R)

21 Illinois (B)

22 North Carolina (S)

23 South Carolina (R)

24 Arizona (R)

25 Wisconsin (S)

26 Florida (S)

27 Utah (R)

28 North Dakota (R)

29 South Dakota (R)

30 Virginia (B)

31 Minnesota (B)

32 Pennsylvania (B)

33 Colorado (B)

34 Montana (R)

35 Delaware (B)

36 Nevada (B)

37 New Hampshire (B)

38 Washington (B)

39 Vermont (B)

40 Maine (B)

41 Rhode Island (B)

42 New Jersey (B)

43 Connecticut (B)

44 Maryland (B)

45 Alaska (R)

46 Massachusetts (B)

47 Oregon (B)

48 New York (B)

49 California (B)

50 Washington D.C. (B)

51 Hawaii (B)

Ok flip that around, lets see the average wealth of people on this list.

44. Maryland-

Richest State in the us.

51. Hawaii-

Second Richest State

45. Alaska-

7th richest state

46. Massachusetts-

4th richest state

idk what this means

but take that information cuz i noticed a trend.

the top ten richest states

were all blue.

How is “richest” defined?

Cost of housing is probably a factor. Though, homeless migrate to big cities for the services. Downtown has all your welfare, public transit, panhandling spots. Blue states got the big cities and medicaid expansion, and typically city police and prosecutorial policies are more friendly to the homeless. At least that's what I would think without reading more in to it. I don't see much of a connection to style of governance.

i just searched up richest states in america  dude. it was on bing tho.

Median income is how they did it. Though blue states come out on top in usually every measure.

This is the real cost of living in a blue state.

That is a bit deceptive to simply take median income out of context like that. 

I will demonstrate the few you gave me:

Hawaii is the "second richest". Median income: $80,212 Median income adjusted for cost of living: $41,582.17. Now it is the worst

Alaska seventh. Median income: $74,346 Adjusted median: $57,233.26. Alaska is 30th.

Massachusetts fourth. Median income: $79,835 Adjusted median: $60,664.89 Massachusetts is 23rd.

As you can see, while Hawaii has one of the highest median incomes, it also has the highest cost of living, which is almost twice the US average cost of living.

Also, keep in mind that taxes were not included, so this is merely gross income. The take home pay would make the situation much worse for Blue states on average.

Lmao. Yes, if I included rioting costs, it might also get a bit worse for our liberal friends.

Those certainly are some factors that would contribute to the higher homeless population. I'm not blaming it entirely on their taxes and regulations. Generally the largest cities in the state have more homeless people, but I doubt that homeless people are able to complete multi-state migration on such a scale as to produce the disparities we are seeing. (Also without looking too much into it lol. This thread is just partially touching on homelessness and is mainly a reference to show how policies affect cost of living)

didn't realize

u forgot maryland tho.

maryland gang maryland gang

living in maryland awesome

Ah, my bad lol. Maryland is in a respectable 16th. $83,242 turns into $64,180.42.

Yes, there are a lot of bad policies that increase cost of living in blue states. The utilities are too expensive importantly, in these tiered energy rates. It's all in the name of saving the environment, but you know, it's essentially a regressive tax, even more so because the poor tend to huddle many people in to a single household which drives up the utility usage. Cigarette taxes are very high. Housing costs are a supply and demand issue, and the governments implement policies which aren't conducive to the production of mass housing, nor does the government provide the housing. They'll dedicate some land to a local squirrel rather than build housing. When all you want to do is work and save, you'll be disqualified from the low income housing programs because you work too much, and then you'll be forking over 2.5k+/mo for a dumpy apartment. Hard to get ahead like that.

I think we are in perfect agreement on what you just outlined. A lot of those outlined programs, whatever the intention may be, ultimately raise the cost of living. Now while that may not affect those making the median of $70-80k in some of those states beyond a small to moderate blow to their standard of living, it will ultimately be catastrophic for those in the lower income brackets who then have to juggle child care, housing costs, food costs, etc.

urban vs rural

What about rural vs urban? That urban is more expensive and conservative states are more rural?

literally every difference is explained by urban VS rural, more open space=less cheap housing and more homelessness in cities yet less wealth.In fact, the reason why blue states exist is because their population is either 70%+ in ciites while solid red is below 50 and swing is 50-70

it is literally the only key difference

And why do you believe that urban areas are more liberal?

well first of all-then minority majority thing and they are a couple of articles on it on why it is-people who decide to live in cities are liberal-https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/brief-history-how-democrats-conquered-city/597955/

PLUS every city is like this-every city-even nashville,lousiville and indianopolis-cities in red states are all heavily democratic, no exception

Have you seen the mayor who is trying to run as a Conservative in Maryland? She made such a great ad!

Uncut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S_Xl2eOeeY

I found a list looking at median income adjusted for cost of living disparities. [HERE]

If a state has ever swapped hands from 2000 to 2016 in the us federal election I put it as a tossup. I made an exception for Indiana and New Mexico though.

Seemed like a pretty decent ad. I doubt she will win, though. She isn't from the party of free $h1t.

Interesting. I found my data a different way. I took the median incomes and then divided by the cost of living compared to US. (So Hawaii for instance is ~1.9x the US cost of living). Utah was my top earner and Alaska was fairly far down.

My source may have had different values.

How are you a Democrat? Aren't you from Canada? lol

I mean that I support them, I can't vote for them though. BIDEN 2020

Also, our sources definitely used different methods. Hawaii in my source had a cost of living which was just 18.8% higher than the US average.

I don't think static real income is a good way to measure whether Democratic or Republican policies are working. I think trends are the key. The economic potential of the South is only just now being tapped, and the exodus from Democrat states is an ongoing process. Maybe not statically, but in terms of trends, I think Republican states are outperforming Democrat ones by a fair margin. 

Today the bigger issue is far more about the cost of expectation, rather than about the cost of living.

Can't afford to look after the kids properly, but can somehow afford to possess and run all the latest techno gadgetry.

Blue and Red...That's just the same old us and them bills**t.

This is where I got it