An online financial advisor company recently named St. Lawrence County at number nine on its list of top 10 most affordable costs of living in New York state.
Smart Asset says they used the US Census Bureau 2018 American Community Survey, MIT Living Wage Study and the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018 Consumer Expenditure Survey to calculate their rankings.
They say there is a $34,731 cost of living and a $48,330 median income. They rate the county as having an 82.86 "cost of living index.
They say they "calculated two different cost of living metrics for a household with one adult and no dependents."
"One reflected the baseline cost of living in each location and the other was based on expenditures typical to someone making the county’s median income. We combined these two numbers using a weighted average based on how close each county’s median income was to the minimum livable income in that area. We then subtracted income taxes paid in that area," Smart Asset said on their website. "Finally, we calculated purchasing power by determining the weighted cost of living as a percentage of median income. The top locations were those with the highest median income relative to the cost of living."
