How far does $100 go? I suppose a literal answer to that question might be 1,223.8 miles (1,969.5 kilometers for the non-US, Liberia, or Myanmar readers). That’s the distance from Rochester, NY to Orlando, FL. Okay, so what? Well, that happens to be the furthest distance you can travel by air for less than $100 from ROC. To be fair, that $98 fare (pun intended) arrived in my email inbox and may have strings attached.
What about non-fliers? Anyone who knows me knows I’m a fan of trains. From the redesigned and newly named Louise M. Slaughter Intermodal Station in Rochester, $100 gets you a round trip ticket to Boston, MA or if you prefer Toledo, OH. No offense to Toledo, but Boston is slightly further. A round trip to Beantown clocks in at 784.6 miles (1,262.7 kilometers). In the interest of full disclosure, the train tickets only cost $46 each way. So if you chose train travel, your $100 budget would leave you $8 to splurge on whatever you wish.
A less than diligent search of bus options (I’m not a fan of buses), yielded similar results for Boston. Although to be fair to the bus companies, you would have an extra $2 in your pocket to spend. FWIW, the bus trip to Toledo cost $88 one way. Apparently, the bus lines want to discourage travel to western OH from western NY.
All right, that’s enough goofing around, even for me. The original idea for this post was retirement. Specifically, where do I want to retire? While there are many components to such a decision, a critical one is the cost of living. A common measure for the cost of living is purchasing power. Purchasing power is a measure of how much a given amount of currency can buy. It’s often used to measure cost of living in areas with different currencies. The Economist magazine creates an annual purchasing power index using a McDonald’s Big Mac as the common reference item. They picked the Big Mac because of it’s uniformity, not it’s desirability.
Today’s map comes courtesy of the Tax Foundation and is based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data from 2014.
Relative Value of $100
I guess it’s not surprising that major metros have the highest costs. Higher populations create more demand for housing and other goods, which drives up prices. I suspect there’s also a high correlation between high cost areas and political affiliation, but that’s a subject for another time.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
Note to pay the bills: While the Warders series doesn’t feature purchasing power parity or dollars, but it does include silver marks, ducats, and other interesting currencies. If you’re interested in a James Bond-like thriller in a high fantasy setting, then, check out a summary of the series here or find links to purchase books here. FYI for at least the first two weeks of June Book 1 (The Poisoned Princess) is on sale for 99 cents via Amazon.
Second Note there is a proposal to drop ‘Intermodal’ from the new Rochester train station’s name, which makes sense since the only thing intermodal about the station is the parking lot for cars. However, near as I could tell the proposal has not been enacted.
Though there is no reason to add this, I am here to tell you that, in 1850, $100 was equal to $3150 today. (for what ever that’s worth).
Well it won’t get you a cup of coffee – that’s hard to send virtually, it’s certainly interesting. Thanks for stopping by.