Houston ranked No. 1 in the world for local purchasing power, making the city an affordable place to live, according to a new report from online publisher Visual Capitalist. 

Purchasing power, a metric used to gauge the number of goods and services someone on an average salary can buy, has become increasingly important to consumers amid rising inflation. The report uses New York City as a benchmark due to its high cost of living to compare both purchasing power and cost of living, or the average day-to-day expenses incurred in a given community. According to the analysis, Houston’s local purchasing power is 73% greater than New York’s.

Houston’s cost of living is 36.1% lower than the Big Apple. Houston’s cost of living is 16% lower than Los Angeles’ cost of living index at 79.2. In comparison to international cities, Beijing’s cost of living falls 14.4% lower than Houston while Tokyo and London’s cost of living rate ranks 21.7% higher than Houston.

Patrick Jankowski, the Partnership’s Senior Vice President of Research, predicts consumers will continue to feel inflation well into the end of 2022 and into 2023. The Federal Reserve will meet later this month to discuss another interest rate hike in hopes of quelling inflation. There are hints that inflation may soon start to moderate due to recent dips in prices for corn, wheat, copper, lumber, oil and natural gas.  

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