Less affordable to live and work in Modesto than New York City? What a new study says
Modesto is among the country’s least affordable cities in which to live, a new study shows.
According to a 2022 study from GoodHire, a background screening software company in Redwood City, Modesto ranks sixth among the least affordable cities in the country, one spot ahead of the New York City metropolitan area.
Leading the ranking for least affordable cities is Los Angeles, followed by Hartford, Connecticut; Corpus Christi, Texas; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Bakersfield.
In Modesto, the median sale price for a house was $430,000 in January, according to MLS data from TrendVision. Meanwhile, average rent price for a one-bedroom apartment was $1,525 the same month, while a two-bedroom apartment had an average rent price of $1,817, according to data from Rent.com.
Sam Radbil, a content strategist at GoodHire, told CNBC Make It that this affordability gap has to do with a person’s earning power. In big cities like New York, higher overall wages will account for the city’s costs, so it may be easier to find somewhere affordable to live. In other, smaller cities — like Modesto — “earning power is likely to be lower,” Radbil added, “With rising home prices and rent costs, this is going to be heavily impacted.”
The study used 2021 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis and Department of Commerce. GoodHire analyzed 155 U.S. cities with workforces of more than 150,000 people to find the most and least affordable places to live and work. Some of the cities in the ranking include broader metropolitan areas, such as New York City, where GoodHire includes data from surrounding suburbs.
The study weighed seven factors — wage growth, unemployment rate, job growth, job openings, rental prices, real estate sale prices and real per capita personal income — to measure affordability in each of the cities.
The five most affordable cities, by the way, are Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Reno, Nevada; Provo, Utah; Madison, Wisconsin; and Huntsville, Alabama, GoodHire reports.
To help fund The Bee’s economic development reporter with Report for America, go to https://bit.ly/ModestoBeeRFAThis story was produced with financial support from the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
