Insights · Data guide
Groundwork research · Published October 19, 2026 · Data as of September 29, 2026 · 6 min read
A regional price parity (RPP) is the Bureau of Economic Analysis's (BEA) measure of how prices in one place compare with the nation's: 100 is the national price level and 110 means prices 10% above it. The warehouse holds one all-items parity for each of 387 metropolitan areas, for 2024, from 83.6 in Monroe, LA to 115.6 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. This guide explains what a parity measures, how BEA builds it, how metro areas spread around 100, what drives the number, and how the site turns it into pay after cost of living.
BEA publishes regional price parities for the 50 states, the District of Columbia and metropolitan areas. They measure the differences in price levels across places for a given year and are expressed as a percentage of the overall national price level. BEA's own example is a parity of 120, which means prices in the area are on average 20% higher than the U.S. average. The all-items parity covers consumption goods and services, housing rents included, for the average consumer in the area.
A parity compares places inside one year. BEA's latest year is 2024, its current release came out on February 19, 2026 and the next is scheduled for December 10, 2026 (read on October 19, 2026).
Prices come from the Consumer Price Index survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics: over a million price quotes a year, sorted into more than 200 item groups, from 32 index areas. Rents come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey microdata, which also prices the other utilities, and electricity and gas prices come from the Energy Information Administration's state tables. The weights are BEA's own estimates of what consumers spend in each state, in about 170 categories.
BEA builds the prices and the spending up for more than 3,000 counties, combines them with the Geary formula, and publishes the results for states and metropolitan areas. By construction the all-items parity for the United States is 100. Four components are published beside it: goods, housing rents, utilities and other services. The methodology is dated July 2025.
A parity of 105 means prices 5% above the national level and 95 means 5% below. Two metro areas compare directly, because both are ratios to the same national level in the same year: the highest parity in our table, 115.6 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, is a price level 38% above the lowest, 83.6 in Monroe, LA. The number says how much more or less a typical basket of goods and services costs there. It says nothing of how much of that basket a household buys.
Metropolitan areas by all-items parity, 2024
297 of the 387 metro areas sit below 100 and 90 above it. The median metro area is 93.5 and the mean 94.9. The national 100 weights places by what people spend in them, so the few large, costly metro areas pull it up: the 295 million residents of these metro areas, weighted by population, average 101.1, and 56% of them live in a metro area above 100.
The highest and the lowest five:
BEA says housing rents are often the main driver of the differences between parities. Its 2024 state figures show it: the all-items parity runs from 86.9 in Arkansas to 110.7 in California, while the housing rent parity runs from 54.2 in West Virginia to 154.3 in California.
Our table shows the same thing in metro areas. Across the 370 that have both a parity and a HUD fair market rent for a two-bedroom home (HUD's fiscal 2027 rents), the two rank alike: the rank correlation is 0.89, and a parity 1% higher goes with a rent 3.4% higher. Rents vary far more between metro areas than prices as a whole.
The warehouse's table has one number for each of 387 metropolitan areas, the all-items parity for 2024, loaded through BEA's data interface (the Regional dataset, table MARPP, all items). BEA's four components, the state parities and the nonmetropolitan portions stay out of it, and the site reads it by area code. 387 of the 393 metro areas in our OEWS wage table have a parity. The six without one are all in Puerto Rico (Aguadilla, PR; Arecibo, PR; Guayama, PR; Mayaguez, PR; Ponce, PR; San Juan-Bayamon-Caguas, PR), because BEA's parities cover the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Two area names arrive from BEA with a trailing asterisk (Enid, OK * and Twin Falls, ID *). The site matches by area code, so the mark never reaches a page.
A parity describes the average consumer's prices in one year, as federal price and rent data see them. The Consumer Price Index survey was designed to follow prices over time, and BEA notes that comparing places with it can be volatile where few prices are collected. Since 2021 BEA uses each year's results alone, where earlier parities averaged five years. Hospitals, physician services, prescription drugs, three education items and one recreation item carry the national price level in every place. Housing is measured by rents, for owners as well as renters. A parity prices goods and services; income taxes, a longer commute and a household's own habits are other matters.
BEA's release of February 19, 2026 ended its real personal income and real spending statistics for metropolitan areas and continues to publish parities for states and local areas.
It says typical prices there sit 5% below the national level. What a household spends depends on its own mix of rent, goods and services, so read the gap as a guide.
The national level weights places by spending, and the large metro areas that hold many people are the costly ones. Our table has 297 metro areas below 100, and the people in all 387 average 101.1.
BEA describes a parity as a price index for one point in time, relative to the United States. A change between two years shows a place's prices moving against the nation's.
BEA builds its parity from federal price and rent data and weights it by state spending. Other indexes use their own baskets and sources, so their numbers differ.
BEA regional price parities: the all-items parity of 2024 for 387 metropolitan areas as loaded into our cost of living table, with the fiscal 2027 HUD fair
market rents for a two-bedroom home and Census population estimates. BEA's definition, release dates and methodology were read on October 19, 2026. Built by scripts/build_insights.py.
Sources: BEA regional price parities; BEA release of February 19, 2026; BEA methodology, July 2025.
Informational only; not legal, immigration, or financial advice.
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