Tri Cities Washington Has Lowest Cost of Living in State
The opposite of how it works in the Tri Cities
The Tri City Herald featured an article today outlining the latest ACCRA Cost of Living Index. Of the state’s top five metropolitan statistical areas- Seattle/Bellevue/Everett, Spokane, Tacoma, Yakima and Kennewick/Pasco/Richland- The Tri Cities remains for another year the least expensive place to live.
While the ACCRA index did go up a little bit over the prior period, it remained the lowest of all other metro areas with a composite index of 92.1 for the 3rd quarter of 2009.
To see an Cost of Living Calculator for your area or to compare areas, see it here from CNN.
The index is calculated by The Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), based in Arlington, VA. The index measures the relative price levels of groceries, housing, health care, utilities and transportation in more than 300 metro areas nationwide.
This low cost of living has been a real boon to area business recruiters. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (based in Richland, WA) recruiter Jordan Blasdel stated that about 60 percent of the 100 people she recruited to the Tri Cities heavily considered the cost of living in making their decision to relocate here.
More importantly, the industrial recruiters and community development people leverage this statistic to recruit and retain new companies to the Tri Cities Washington.
It’s just another selling point to consider when one is looking at and comparing new job opportunities being offered.
[...] the Tri City Home Team is pleased once again to find a national periodical that touts our area in a top ten list. Affordability is one thing, but quality of life has to be a part of the equation when decided [...]