from “le détroit” · the strait
A new report ranks Detroit the least expensive of the 50 largest U.S. cities for household bills, at $20,125 a year, about 20 percent below the national median.
Detroit's bills are the lightest of any big city in the country.
A report released October 14 ranks Detroit the least expensive of the 50 largest U.S. cities for everyday household bills. The typical Detroit household spends $20,125 a year on essential bills, about 20 percent below the national median.
That national median is $25,266, which doxo, the company behind the ranking, describes as what the typical U.S. household spends across 13 essential bills each year. The 13 are mortgage, rent, auto loan, gas, electric, water and sewer, waste and recycling, auto insurance, cable and satellite, health insurance, mobile phone, alarm and security, and life insurance. Those are the costs that land on almost every household every month, whatever the headlines say about inflation.
"Cost of living gets talked about as a single national number, but that's not how anyone experiences it. It's thirteen bills a month, and what they add up to depends enormously on where you live," said Steve Shivers, co-founder and CEO of doxo, in the report.
Where you live turns out to matter a lot. At the other end of the list, San Jose is the most expensive city at $44,947 a year, 78 percent above the national median.
Detroit isn't alone at the affordable end. Cleveland, El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio, and Pittsburgh round out the five least expensive cities. The priciest cities cluster on the coasts, with New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston following San Jose.
For Detroiters, the number backs up something the city's boosters have argued for years. The fixed monthly costs that shape where people can afford to live are smaller than almost anywhere else in the country.
doxo published the full ranking of all 50 cities on its newsroom site, each with its own annual bill total.
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