Cost of Living

What it costs to cover ordinary expenses like housing, food and transport in a given place.

Cost of living compares the everyday expense of one location or period against another, and it is why identical salaries buy very different lives in different cities. Housing is usually the dominant component and the main source of variation. Wage negotiations and pension adjustments are frequently indexed to a published measure of it.

The higher salary did not go as far once the cost of living in the new city was accounted for.