(chart) Oregon, blue states rule top inflation states

Blue States are highest cost, and Red States are lowest cost
Data from the U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis, latest year available (2023)
Bob Clark
Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation

In its latest annual reporting, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis ranks Oregon as the eighth most expensive U.S. state to live in. It costs roughly 8.5 percent more to live in Oregon than the average of all 50 states.

California is the most expensive state to live in with it costing roughly 16 to 17 percent more to live.

Meanwhile, Arkansas has the lowest cost of living at just under 90% of the 50-state average. Mississippi is the second lowest for the cost of living, but it is also the poorest U.S state based on other Bureau of Economic Analysis data (I will report separately on this other data which shows Oregon as the 9th poorest state for real after-tax income per capita).

Here is the charting of the ten most expensive states to live in and the ten least expensive states to live in, per the latest Bureau of Economic Analysis data (released on December 20, 2024):

All ten of the high-cost states in the first chart voted in favor of Harris (D) for president, whereas all ten of the low-cost states in the second chart voted in favor of Trump (R) for president. So, in a way, Blue states are indeed highest in cost of living whereas Red states are lowest in cost of living.

The perfect correlation between cost of living and party preference/vote breaks down with Florida which voted for Trump but has the 11th highest cost of living among U.S. states. But generally speaking, Blue states (those voting for Harris) have between a 6 to 7% higher cost of living than the 50 state average, whereas Red states (those voting for Trump) have about a 4% lower cost of living than the 50 state average.

Based on Cato Institute data, the high-cost blue states charted above do tend to have less economic regulatory freedom than the low-cost red states charted above, but the correlation is not perfect. Then too, the high-cost blue states also tend to have higher population densities than the low-cost red states. But this correlation is not strong.

Of course, across the entire nation, the cost of living increased rapidly at an annual rate of about 5.7% between the end of 2020 through the end of 2023, per Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI index.