Cost Of Living

Cost of Living

Introduction:

There are four regions in the United States and they include western, Midwest, north east and south. We first group the data given into these regions. The data provided gives the cost of living in the urban areas in the United States, the four regions have different number of urban areas and also it is evident that they have different cost of living with the provided data.

The regions of the United States are available at www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/U.

S._state/ . When we group them then the number of urban areas for each region is as follows:

region

Number of urban areas

west

85

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Cost of Living

Midwest

86

south

169

north east

30

total

370

Cost of living for these regions:

We can analyse whether the cost of living in these urban areas depend on the region located, we will consider each location, The following table shows the means cost of living in the regions;

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Cost of Living

Region

Composite Index

Grocery Items

Housing

Utilities

Transportation

Health Care

Misc Goods and Services

west

106.341577

108.6016

110.3933

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Cost of Living

97.35843

106.5699

115.4173

102.5414

Midwest

97.7957996

96.82771

95.67815

100.9792

98.80305

96.74779

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Cost of Living

99.14381

south

95.5975319

96.29071

91.96788

96.06523

95.69368

94.23799

98.40462

north east

114.849876

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Cost of Living

105.6731

129.3758

131.8905

106.5481

110.8247

105.9687

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Cost of Living

MAX

114.849876

108.6016

129.3758

131.8905

106.5699

115.4173

105.9687

MIN

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Cost of Living

95.5975319

96.29071

91.96788

96.06523

95.69368

94.23799

98.40462

The above table summarises all the products offered and give the means for each region, given the above we can consider the following graph for all the products in all the regions:

Means of the goods and services:

The graph below shows the means for all the regions and goods and services in the data.

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Cost of Living

From the above graph we will first check the maximum values, it is clear from the above that the highest value of means is from the north east and the west region. The minimum value of mean come from the south region, Therefore from the mean analysis we can conclude that the cost of living depends on the region where the urban centre is located, with regard to this statement we can still conclude that the cost of living is high in both the west region and the north east region, the lowest cost of living is recorded in the south region.

Composite index:

The following graph represents all the regions in the composite index, the graph gives the mean value of the composite index in the regions:

The north east region has the highest means followed by the west region. The region with the lowest is the south region.

Grocery items:

The graph below gives the mean value cost of the grocery items in the regions

The west region has the highest mean and the region with the lowest mean is the south region.

Housing:

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Cost of Living

The graph below represents the mean value of the cost of housing in the regions

The north region has the highest mean cost and the region with the lowest mean cost is the south region

Utilities:

The graph below represents the cost of utilities in the four regions

The north east region has the highest mean cost while the south has the lowest mean cost

Transportation:

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Cost of Living

The graph below represents the mean cost of transport in the four regions of the United States

The north east region has a higher mean cost while the west has the second largest and followed by the mid west and the lowest mean cost is from the south region.

Health care:

The graph represents the mean cost of health care by regions

From the graph the north east region has higher mean cost while the south region has the lowest mean cost.

Misc goods and services:

The graph shows the mean cost of miscellaneous goods and services

Again the north east region has the highest mean cost and the south region has the lowest mean cost.

From our cost analysis using the mean it is clear that the west and the north east regions are high cost regions, it is also clear that the south region is a low cost region while the mid west region is a medium cost region. Therefore the cost of living depends on the region where one lives, living in the west or the north east region the cost of living is higher than living in the Midwest or the south region. Living in the south region means that the cost of living is the lowest

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Cost of Living

in the United  States with regard to all the goods and services provided.

Standard deviation analysis:

The standard deviation measures the deviation from the mean, the measure is an important measure of data and it depicts the deviation from the mean of the data, in our data we analyse the data with regards to deviation on all the products, below is the composite mean data for all the regions:

region

Composite  Index

Grocery Items

Housing

Utilities

Transportation

Health Care

Misc Goods and  Services

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Cost of Living

west

12.453705

8.855569

30.43661

17.79211

9.244915104

15.63128

5.76568156

mid west

5.1107117

5.64021

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Cost of Living

9.224209

13.76224

7.079969297

9.048582

4.15868221

south

5.44098

6.383005

10.35217

11.93741

7.60218874

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Cost of Living

8.601983

4.48768132

north east

27.677668

11.12755

75.89664

23.48378

8.859206958

23.00929

9.33605792

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Cost of Living

max

27.677668

11.12755

75.89664

23.48378

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Cost of Living

9.244915104

23.00929

9.33605792

min

5.1107117

5.64021

9.224209

11.93741

7.079969297

8.601983

4.15868221

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Cost of Living

Below is the graph for the composite index

The north east region has the highest deviation, this means that the data deviates more from the mean than any other region, the mid west region has the lowest followed by the couth region.

From this analysis therefore it is clear that the urban areas in the north east region have a large difference where some regions have high levels of cost while others have very low costs.

Lower deviation means that the deviation from the mean is lower than the other regions. These regions include the mid west and the south region.

Totals for the regions:

The composite index depict that the south has a larger portion of index, the mid west and the west regions have 23% and 24% respectively and this shows that the two regions have a very close composite index. The lowest index total is in the north east region where the level is 9%.

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Cost of Living

Conclusion:

From the above discussion it is clear that the west region and the north east region has the highest cost of living, this is evident from the statistical analysis of the cost of housing, grocery, transport and health care. The other observation is that the south region has the lowest level of cost of living and the second lowest is the mid west.

Therefore the cost of living depends on the region in which the area or urban area is located, the urban areas located in the west and the North West is high cost of living regions while the mid west and the south region are low cost of living regions.

From the totals of the composite index that summarises the cost of living in the regions it is clear that the south region has the highest value while the least is from the north east region, the total number of urban areas we can conclude that the south region has the highest number of urban areas while the north east region has the lowest number of urban areas.

Therefore the cost of living in the United States depends on the region in which the urban area is located. When one locates in the west or the north east region then the higher is the cost of living. If one locates in the south the cost of living will be lower in regards to goods, services, transport, housing and health costs.

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Cost of Living

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Cost of Living

References:

Allan Bluman (2000) Elementary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach, McGraw Hill press, New York

The regions of the United States (2007) the west, the north east, the south and the mid west, retrieved on 9th November, available at www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/U.S._state/

Lind and Mason (2003) Statistical Techniques in Business and Economics, McGraw Hill, New York

Levine and Berenson (2000) Statistics using Microsoft Excel, 4th edition, Mc Graw Hill, New York

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