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Single workers need a six-figure salary to live comfortably in 11 U.S. states, new study says

Single workers need a six-figure salary to live comfortably in 11 U.S. states, according to a new study released this month by personal finance company SmartAsset.

The study defines a comfortable lifestyle as one where 50% of a person’s earnings go toward primary needs like food and shelter, 30% to miscellaneous “wants” and 20% to savings or paying off debt.

The 11 states where single workers need over $100,000 to fit that budget structure are, in order from most to least expensive: Massachusetts, Hawaii, California, New York, Washington, Colorado, New Jersey, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island and Connecticut.



To live comfortably in Massachusetts, a single person would need to make $116,022 yearly to fit the 50/30/20 budget, more than $2,000 more than in Hawaii, where a single person would need to make at least $113,693 each year.

Outside of the two coasts, Colorado and the geographically isolated Hawaiian Islands, single workers can live more affordably.

The 11 cheapest states for single workers adhering to the 50/30/20 budget were, in order from cheapest to most expensive, West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kentucky, Ohio, South Dakota, Louisiana, Mississippi and Iowa.

With only $78,790 needed for a single adult each year, West Virginia is more than $37,000 cheaper to live in than Massachusetts.

The study also measured how much a pair of working adults would need in each state to raise two children. The 10 most expensive states for these families, in order, are Massachusetts, Hawaii, Connecticut, New York, California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Maryland, on the other hand, is only the 15th most expensive state for two-parent, two-child families.

The 10 cheapest states for two-parent, two-child families in order were Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Dakota, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Kansas.

While they were cheap for singles, North Dakota, Iowa, and Ohio were the 38th, 31st, and 28th most expensive for four-member families, respectively.

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