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October 20, 2008

Plattsburgh cost of living rises above norm

PLATTSBURGH — The Technical Assistance Center (TAC) at SUNY Plattsburgh has announced the latest research on local cost-of-living data based on The Council for Community and Economic Research recently published results for the second quarter of 2008 Cost of Living Index.

TAC gathers the local data and provides it to the council as part of that agency’s national analysis of communities.

These results show that, based on an index covering six categories — housing, utilities, grocery items, transportation, health care and miscellaneous goods and services — the cost of living in Plattsburgh is slightly higher than the indexed national average.

The overall index in Plattsburgh is 103.6 percent of the national average. This means that the area’s cost of living is 3.6 percent higher than the average cost of living in the 318 cities included in the research. The last time this number was over 100 percent was in mid-2006 (at 101.5 percent), but this number dipped back down below 100 percent later in the year.

In December 2007, Plattsburgh came in at 99.4 percent of the national average.

Plattsburgh still fares well in comparison to costs of living with neighboring Burlington, Vt., which came in at 116 percent of the national average and Glens Falls, N.Y., which came in at 108.8 percent.

Of the 11 New York urban areas studied, only Syracuse (99.6 percent), Buffalo/Niagara Falls (95.8 percent) and Rochester (103.2 percent) ranked as comparatively less expensive than Plattsburgh. Manhattan remains the most expensive urban area in the country, at over twice the national average (220.3 percent) and Pryor Creek, Okla., is the least expensive, at 82.4 percent.

Plattsburgh costs ranked slightly higher than national averages in each of the six categories except for grocery costs. Grocery costs in the area came in at 99.2 percent of the national average. This is particularly relevant given the rising costs of food across the nation in the last year. This may indicate that those in the Plattsburgh vicinity may be receiving an increasing value in this household cost area. This indicates that grocery shoppers in the Plattsburgh area are getting a better value than the national average.

TAC Economic Developer Victoria Zinser Duley stated that “while there have been minor fluctuations above or below the national-average cost of living levels, TAC has found that the trends over time show Plattsburgh to be relatively even with overall household costs compared to these communities. Perhaps more importantly, the region shows a competitive strength through its consistently lower household costs than its neighboring cities to the south and east.”

The Cost of Living study measures differences in costs for consumer goods and services across regions, exclusive of taxes. It is a snapshot of the costs of a broad range of these goods and services at a given time period within a community in comparison with other urbanized areas. The study is open to all communities where county populations exceed 50,000 and where the population of the city/area measured exceeds 35,000. In the case of Plattsburgh, the City and Town of Plattsburgh and immediate suburbs are included within the research area.

The complete quarterly Cost of Living Index report is available by subscription. For more information, visit http://www.coli.org or call (703) 522-4980.

The Technical Assistance Center at SUNY Plattsburgh is the economic development outreach arm of the college. You may find out more about TAC by visiting http://www.plattsburgh.edu/offices/centers/tac or calling 564-2214.

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