How Far Does $100 Go In California?

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff)

How far does $100 go in California compared with the rest of the country? One group has an answer for you.

The Tax Foundation, which describes itself as “the nation’s leading independent tax policy research organization,” released a map showing just how far $100 goes in each state compared to the national average.

Using 2013 data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the foundation showed “the real value of $100 in each state.”

In other words, how much worth of goods can $100 buy in your state vs. those same goods around the country?

“For example, Ohio is a low-price state,” the foundation writes. “$100 there will buy you stuff that would cost $111.61 in a state closer to the national average. You could think of this as meaning that Ohioans are, for the purposes of day-to-day living, eleven percent richer than their incomes suggest.”

The states with the biggest value for your dollar? Those would be Mississippi ($115.21), Arkansas ($114.29), South Dakota ($114.16), Alabama ($114.03) and West Virginia ($113.12).

And, unsurprisingly, 100 bucks is worth the least in the District of Columbia ($84.96), Hawaii ($86.06), New York ($86.73), New Jersey ($87.34) and California ($89.05).

“If you have $50,000 in after tax income in Mississippi, you would have to have after-tax earnings of $68,000 in the District of Columbia just to afford the same overall standard of living,” the foundation writes in a report released Thursday.

Check out the full map here.

And while this news may be no surprise to most of us, this one may shock even the most jaded: Rents Gone Wild In Silicon Valley!

Image via the Tax Foundation