Worldwide cost of living index 2019 | Hacker News Reader

Worldwide cost of living index 2019

eiu.com

23 pointsJyefet11 comments

These are always so unreliable because they never adequately account for the wide range of housing costs you can get in different cities when you take into account public transit as well as family size and whether you'll be willing to have roommates.

You basically need to sub-divide and rank these across commute times + family/roommates preferences. So Top 10 most expensive within 10 minute commute, within 20 minute commute, within 30 min commute, etc., further broken by family/room requirements.

For example, if you want to live in Manhattan then sure you can pay 1500 for a bedroom.

But a better bedroom that's still within 30 minutes commute of a Manhattan job for a $3 subway ride is $900. Just have to choose based off what part of the city your job will be in and live with 2-3 of your friends.

This, there is no possible way, when the housing cost of similar space and furnishing are included, that Hong Kong would be equal to Singapore and Paris.

Most of the figure tends to use 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom as calculation. You will then have to look at the bedroom in HK are very likely smaller than some of your kitchen in Paris.

And then it is further lowered by having the one of the cheapest McDonald in the world.

Yes, LOL, my family of 13 is always off the charts.

Another problem is that lots of people don't live in cities. Covering only the big cities is an easy way out, but completely useless for many people. Since the non-city areas are numerous but don't have well-known names, you really need a map.

10 expensive:

    Singapore Singapore
    France Paris
    China Hong Kong
    Switzerland Zurich
    Switzerland Geneva
    Japan Osaka
    South Korea Seoul 
    Denmark Copenhagen 
    US New York 
    Israel Tel Aviv 
    US Los Angeles

10 Cheapest:

    Venezuela Caracas
    Syria Damascus
    Uzbekistan Tashkent
    Kazakhstan Almaty
    India Bangalore
    Pakistan Karachi
    Nigeria Lagos
    Argentina Buenos Aires
    India Chennai
    India New Delhi

Is LA really more expensive than SF?

IDK. I just copy and pasted from the free pdf

While it's interesting and I'm curious, it's just not worth $1K to me to see a more full list.

I had to double check this because I didn't believe it. Wow, $1000 for a report, talk about being paywalled!

Clearly, the OP lives in Singapore...

Somewhat related, I really like https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/ for the "real" comparison on items of daily life.

This website has a "free" option where you have to give out your details or a paywall (for which you no doubt have to give out personal info as well). If you want to read this you are coerced to give out money, which makes this an exceptionally suspect and poor source.

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