Is the Economy 7 meters Worth it?
There is no simple answer to that question. In this post, we will see exactly is the cost of living in different countries around the globe. The Cost of Living Index (COLI) is a measure of a country’s purchasing power. We will see how to measure and calculate COLI, then we will compute the annual cost of living in different cities around the world.
The best reference book for calculating the cost of living in different countries is the Cost of Living Calculator.
It is very comprehensive and has a lot of useful features. The following figure gives an overview of the different aspects of the COI calculator. The more aspects you check, the more comprehensive the calculation will be.
Source: costoflivingcalculator.com
Let’s take a look at some data on the average wages in different countries around the world. The countries have been ranked according to the average wages. The data are collected from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Source: econbrowser.com
The average salaries of US citizens (for the year 2014) are around $54,000. source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Average salaries in Australia are around $68,000.
source: Bureau of Labor Statistics In Finland, wages are close to the median wages in the US. The average Finnish citizen makes around $72,000 a year. source: Bureau of Labor Statistics The best-paid nation is in Japan where the average salary is $110,000.
source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
The next question is: Is the money earned in the US enough for a standard of living? In 2013, the COLI was $1,300. That’s the standard of living of the average US citizen. This is almost 20% of the average salary in the US. Here is the result of a calculation of the median salaries in the US. Source: thecolindecisionmap.com The result is much more than $1,300.
That is what is called the high-income COLI. A middle-class COLI is around $2,900. Even if you earn less than that in the US, you will be fine in almost all the other developed countries.
In fact, you will earn much more in those countries. The average salary of US citizens is more than 50% of the average salaries in the UK and Canada. Source: econbrowser.com Now let’s have a look at some countries with similar incomes per capita.
