Fergie's Tech Blog

Forbes 2009 Top Pick for Affordable City For U.S. Families: San Jose, California

San Jose, California

If you've scaled back your summer vacation and swapped dining out for eating in, you're not alone. Americans everywhere are sweating their daily expenses.

It's likely New Yorkers are cinching their belts. That's because New York is the least-affordable metro in the nation for families, according to our calculations. Families in the Big Apple struggle to keep their budgets balanced and likely worry about paying for expenses like food, health care and housing more than residents of virtually any other major city in the country.

Though New Yorkers' earnings are high compared with the rest of the country--their median income is the eighth-highest of our survey of the country's 40 largest cities--the cost of a family's most basic living expenses is nearly as high, accounting for a whopping 93% of annual pay.

If the typical family throws in an occasional trip to the movie theater, music lessons for the kids or membership at a club or gym, they will soon find themselves in the red. Folks in cities with more money leftover will have an easier time providing for their families. Education costs were not available and were not factored into our ranking.

Another notoriously high-rent city, San Jose, Calif., falls at the other end of the spectrum, emerging as the country's most affordable major city.

posted by Fergie @ 7/05/2009 05:13:00 PM