High Cost of Living in the West

"Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country." Or, so the saying goes. But the cost of living may be too steep for most renters and home buyers.

The inflation rate in the West was up 2.4 percent in the year ending in March 2019, versus a 1.7 percent growth rate in the Northeast, and a 1.6 percent rate in both the Midwest and the South, MarketWatch reports. Higher housing costs are a major player in the West's high cost of living. For example, Las Vegas had a 10.5 percent annual home price appreciation rate in January 2019, and Phoenix had a 7.5 percent annual rate, per S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index data.

The increase in the cost of living in different regions of the country have usually tracked closely together historically. Yet starting in 2015, government figures show, the spread between the rate of inflation in West and the other regions widened considerably. A similar phenomenon took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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