Methodology

The basket

Every city in the index is priced on the same fixed, 10-item basket: bread, milk, eggs, bananas, bottled water, beer, a cappuccino, rice, chicken breast, and one public transit ticket. Keeping the basket identical across cities is what makes the comparison meaningful — it's the same list of everyday items priced wherever they're available, converted to US dollars.

The New York City baseline and index score

New York City is the baseline, fixed at an index score of 100. Every other city's score is that city's basket total divided into New York's basket total (scaled to 100), so a score of 200 means the same basket costs roughly half as much there as it does in New York — your $10 effectively goes about twice as far. A score below 100 means the basket costs more than in New York, so $10 buys relatively less. Each city page also shows what percentage of the full basket $10 actually covers, and a few real local experiences — a meal, a ride, an activity — priced around that same $10, to make the number tangible rather than abstract.

Where the data comes from

Prices are researched estimates, not a live, scraped, or real-time feed. They're compiled from typical local market prices and prevailing exchange rates at the time each city was added to the index, and are meant to be illustrative of everyday costs rather than exact to the cent. Prices can and do drift with inflation and currency movement after a city is added, so treat every figure here as a reasonable estimate, not a quote. The index currently covers 20 cities, with more added periodically as they're researched.