Find a Job You Really Want In
In high school, I often felt frustrated when the price of lunch equated to two hours of my summer job wages. This was largely due to living in a high-cost suburb of New York City, where the cost of living is notably higher than most of the country.
Similarly, certain areas in Pennsylvania significantly exceed the average living costs found throughout the Keystone State. The cost of living greatly influences how far your hard-earned salary can stretch for you and your family.
That’s where Zippia provides valuable insight, highlighting regions that consume a considerable portion of your paycheck on essential expenses—much like my hometown, these locations in Pennsylvania feature high housing costs and childcare expenses that can be quite steep.
These towns in Pennsylvania have a cost of living that surpasses the national average, as Pennsylvania generally offers a more affordable lifestyle. After analyzing various factors, we identified the most expensive places to raise a family in the state:
- Bethlehem
- Dunmore
- Easton
- Lansdale
- Phoenixville
- West Chester
- Emmaus
- Lansdowne
- Norristown
- Yeadon
Continue reading to discover how we identified these places that may demand higher expenditures to keep up with the cost of living.
How We Determined the Least Affordable Places to Live in Pennsylvania
Regardless of where you reside in the U.S., certain basic necessities remain constant. These essentials include:
- Housing
- Food
- Gas
- Health Insurance
- Utilities
- Transportation
By comparing the prices of these necessities across various locations in Pennsylvania, we can ascertain which areas are the most expensive.
The result is a “Cost of Living Index” that normalizes at 100 for an average U.S. location. Fortunately, we can rely on Sperling’s Best Places for this valuable index.
We utilized this cost of living index to rank the 50 largest cities in Pennsylvania. To clarify how the index works: a score of 100 represents the average cost of living in the U.S. A score of 90 indicates a cost that is 10% lower than the average, while a score of 120 reflects a cost that is 20% higher. For example, San Francisco scores 243, indicating it is nearly 2.5 times more expensive than the average U.S. location.
1. Bethlehem
Population: 75,016
2. Dunmore
Population: 14,081
3. Easton
Population: 26,885
4. Lansdale
Population: 16,278
5. Phoenixville
Population: 16,430
6. West Chester
Population: 18,656
7. Emmaus
Population: 11,268
8. Lansdowne
Population: 10,634
9. Norristown
Population: 34,217
10. Yeadon
Population: 11,477
Full Table of Expensive Places in Pennsylvania
Author
Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.
