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Comment by jbm | Hacker News Reader

This anecdotally back ups what I was seeing when I visited the US.

Groceries and food (in general) was surprisingly more expensive in New Hampshire and Vermont than Calgary where I live (which is not a low COL area in Canada). I cannot understand how American fruit costs more in the US than they did back home (when including the exchange rate). I was not visiting a premium grocery store (it was a Price Chopper near a Tesla Charger near a small town in NH.)

This generally surprised me because the Canadian "online left" is organizing protests about the cost of food, while I don't see anything similar in the US.

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> Groceries and food (in general) was surprisingly more expensive in New Hampshire and Vermont than Calgary

That doesn't seem that surprising? Where is the produce coming from? Typically California or Mexico. I could imagine the transport costs are lower to Calgary than Vermont.

It also depends on what stores - comparing mid-market to mid-market. Whole Foods in the US is way more expensive than Superstore in Canada.

And it also depends on the state. I almost always (there are exceptions) found US prices (New England, Midwest, and West Coast) to be the same or lower than Canada. Though the NE was the highest of all 3.

The cost of food is almost entirely packaging/logistics.

I doubt much food is coming from CA or Mexico to northeastern states like Vermont and New Hampshire. More like the Midwest, southeast, and even the northeast itself has plenty of agriculture to keep the north east fed, what comes from CA would be things like walnuts, oranges, and grapes, nice for sure but kind of niche. Mexico would be similar, and you can’t compete with the Midwest on corn (Mexico’s most popular crop).

Incidentally, I found food prices in LA to be really cheap. Like, incredibly so given that it was supposed to be HCOL. Proximity to Mexico sure helps. Seattle in comparison is much more expensive, and variety isn’t as great.

Salaries in the US are substantially higher then Canada.

Switch to the purchasing power index to get a more clear view of the relative wealth of people in the countries.

Purchasing power can be misleading in countries with a top-heavy income distribution. Because cost of living calculations include everyday expenses but exclude most luxuries, average costs are close to what the typical consumer pays. But if the income distribution is skewed enough, average salaries can be much higher than what the typical consumer earns.

You can look at median salaries for that.

While you're right that median is more useful than mean in this case, it doesn't address the specific issue jltsiren raised, that this kind of statistics tends to exclude luxury goods.

This seems reasonable, as luxury is not related to the cost of 'living'. However doing so they include more-than-necessary-to-live earnings but excludes more-than-necessary-to-live costs.

In other words, if you include Bruce Wayne's income, you should include batmobiles, too!

The US also differs wildly in cost of living on a state-by-state, city-by-city basis. Even the suburbs of big cities can have a substantially cheaper cost of living.

You're going to have a much different picture of this if you compare San Francisco and Montgomery, Alabama.

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