docs/us_housing/housing_cost_of_living_county_year

housing_cost_of_living_county_year

Regional price parities (RPP) by county and year via CBSA crosswalk. BEA RPP measures the cost of goods and services relative to the national average; counties assigned the RPP of their containing CBSA.

tier —composite_indexhousingbearppprice_paritycost_of_livingcbsa
grain
county-year
years
2008 – 2023
cadence
Annual (December release for year t-2)
overview

overview

3,144 counties x ~16 years = 11,064 rows. CBSA crosswalk used for non-metro counties (RPP not directly published below MSA).

current vintage — 2023 (released December 2024)

history — BEA RPP: 2008-present

provenance

source & licensing

authority
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis / U.S. Census Bureau
dataset
Regional Price Parities; ACS 5-Year Estimates
license
citation
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Regional Price Parities (RPP), state and metropolitan area, 2008-2023.
schema

fields

nametypedefinition
_ingested_attimestampTimestamp when this record was written to BigQuery.Pipeline metadata field.
_ingestor_versionstringVersion of the ingestor script that produced this record.Pipeline metadata field.
_reliability_tierstringData quality tier (A/B/C) assigned at ingestion.Pipeline metadata field.
_source_dataset_idstringInternal dataset identifier linking to meta.datasets.Pipeline metadata field.
country_idstringISO alpha-2 country code (always 'US' for domestic tables).
county_idkeystring5-character FIPS code identifying the county.Joins dim.counties on county_id.
rpp_geo_namestringName of the geographic area (typically county or county-equivalent) to which the Regional Price Parity estimates apply.
rpp_overallfloat64 · index (US=100)Overall Regional Price Parity (RPP) for the geography, published by the BEA, measuring the price level of all consumption goods and services relative to the national average. Higher values indicate a higher local cost of living than the US average.
rpp_sourcestringLabel or identifier indicating the original data source or release from which the RPP estimate was drawn (e.g., BEA release version or vintage year).
state_idstring2-character FIPS code identifying the state.Joins dim.states on state_id.
yearkeyint64Reference year of the observation.
relationships

joins

primary key
county_id, year
common joins
dim.geographies on county_id
cost_of_living_scorecard_county on county_id
economy_personal_income_county_year for real-income calculations
usage

how to use this table

method

BEA computes RPP as price level relative to US average=100, using ACS rent + CPI item prices. Counties assigned RPP of containing MSA; non-metro counties use state non-metro RPP.

do not use for

Sub-CBSA price differentials within a metro (not measured); short-run inflation tracking (annual only); luxury or specific-item pricing.

known issues

Within-metro price variation is invisible (county = MSA RPP). Non-metro state RPP smooths over rural variation.

last updated · May 5, 2026