How New York City’s sky-high cost of living stacks up to London

How New York City’s sky-high cost of living stacks up to London


New York and London are some of the most desirable cities to live in due to the amount of job opportunities and the vibrant entertainment options — but residents are paying a premium.

New York tied with Singapore as the most expensive cities in the world in 2022, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Worldwide Cost of Living Index. London ranked 28th.

Lucy Wong is a native New Yorker who moved to London in February. She recently challenged herself to limit her weekly spending to $150, something she’s done while living in various cities around the world.

Tracking your spending “really makes you conscious of how much you’re spending,” Wong said. “I spent so much more money when I was in New York.”

More from Personal Finance:
Your small business may qualify for a Covid-era tax credit
How to tell if your company has layoffs planned
It’s official: Student loan payments will restart in October

“New York is a lot more expensive than London,” said Lily Slater, who grew up in London and moved to New York for graduate school in 2017. “The appetite for price gouging I think is much stronger here.”

“There is much more of a sense of ‘what is the most I can possibly charge here?'”

One of those high-ticket items is rent. A one-bedroom close to the city center is around $3,700 in New York, according to cost-of-living data collection project Numbeo as of June 21, while a comparable apartment in London would cost roughly $2,600.

On top of a bigger rent payment, groceries are nearly 70% more expensive in New York, according to Numbeo.

“Every time I go to the grocery store, I am shocked at the prices,” Wong said. “When I check out, I’m like, in New York, this would be double.”

How earnings, taxes affect purchasing power

New York may be more expensive, but residents tend to make more money and are taxed less than Londoners. The average New Yorker earned a little less than $1,400 per week as of December whereas London’s average is about $970, according to the St. Louis Fed and the U.K. Office for National Statistics.

Because of this, local purchasing power in New York is about 23% higher than in London, Numbeo estimates.

“When I got my most recent job and I got a pretty big pay bump,” Slater said. “My dad, who lives in South London, was astonished [at] how much money I was going to be making.”

Slater’s dad soon realized her paycheck must not go very far after visiting New York.

“He and his girlfriend bought a coffee, and it cost $15 for just two coffees,” Slater said.

Despite the premium prices, people still want to live in both cities. New York was the top city readers dream of moving to, followed by London, according to a recent Time Out magazine survey.

“I was so excited to come to New York when I moved here, and I get it but I think that people don’t feel that way about London,” Slater said. “There’s something about New York where people are so obsessed with living here that they all put up with how gross it is and how hard it is and how expensive it is anyway.

“And I don’t feel like that’s true in London.”

Watch the video above to learn more about the cost of living in New York and London and why people choose to live in those cities if it’s so expensive.





Source

Healthy Returns: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Gilead and other drugmakers release promising cancer drug data at ASCO
Health

Healthy Returns: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Gilead and other drugmakers release promising cancer drug data at ASCO

Attendees walk through the lobby at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago. Tim Boyle | Bloomberg | Getty Images A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Healthy Returns newsletter, which brings the latest health-care news straight to your inbox. Subscribe here to receive future editions. I’m back in New […]

Read More
Hims & Hers to acquire European telehealth platform in global expansion
Health

Hims & Hers to acquire European telehealth platform in global expansion

The Hims logo arranged on a smartphone in New York, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025.  Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Hims & Hers Health announced Tuesday it will acquire European telehealth platform Zava in its push to expand globally. “We’re excited to take this moment to really accelerate both the European expansion, but […]

Read More
Speaker Mike Johnson says some Medicaid recipients will ‘choose’ whether to lose healthcare under House spending bill
Health

Speaker Mike Johnson says some Medicaid recipients will ‘choose’ whether to lose healthcare under House spending bill

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Sunday defended cuts to Medicaid in the budget bill House Republicans passed last month from allegations that millions of Americans could lose their access to the program, saying that “4.8 million people will not lose their Medicaid unless they choose to do so.” Johnson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the […]

Read More