Published: September 17, 2006 03:09 am      

Morgantown living costs ‘average’ for nation

Higher than three other state communities included in the survey

FAIRMONT — For upper-income professionals, Morgantown’s cost of living is only average when compared to 330 other cities across the nation, according to a recent survey by a national, nonprofit organization.

But the cost-of-living index for the Monongalia-Preston County metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is higher than the three other West Virginia communities in the survey, said Amy Higginbotham.

Martinsburg-Berkeley County in the Eastern Panhandle was second highest in the state with a composite index of 97.7 in the market-basket survey. Charleston was third at 92.8, and Vienna was 91.1.

Morgantown’s composite index was 99.7. The national average composite score was 100.

“It kinds of gives you a sense for the cost of living for persons whose incomes are in the top 20 percent” of income, said Higginbotham. An economist, she is a research associate at the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at West Virginia University.

She and several other persons took the three-day survey for ACCRA. The acronym stands for The Council for Community and Economic Research, located on the Arlington, Va., campus of George Mason University. Started in 1961, ACCRA is the only national group for professionals in applied community research and economic development. The group’s Web site is: www.accra.org.

The results for the latest survey are for the April-June quarter. The in-depth field check covers the cost of 26 grocery items, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous goods and services. ACCRA asks for the cost of very specific items, Higginbotham said.

“We had to survey six grocery stores, 10 doctors, 10 dentists, 10 Realtors, 10 landlords, 10 gas stations and so on” in the three-day period, Higginbotham said.

But the survey does not include taxes and other non-consumer expenditures.

In her article in the Morgantown MSA Economic Monitor, Higginbotham notes that this missing data “could drastically influence the costs to live in the participating cities” in the survey. The quarterly Monitor publication is done by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at WVU. The publication is sponsored by Clear Mountain Bank. ACCRA did not provide the income range for the survey, but it is defined in the survey as the top 20 percent of income.

Morgantown’s national ranking of average “was balanced by higher-than-average utility and health-care costs and lower-than-average costs for ‘miscellaneous goods and services,’” Higginbotham notes.

“Grocery items in Morgantown ... was only slightly above the average (nationally) but was the highest in the state. The cost of housing for Morgantown was ... the highest out of West Virginia but was still 1.6 percent below the U.S. average,” her article states.

Among major northeastern cities, Morgantown’s cost of living is low. New York was the most expensive, with a cost of living index (204.7) more than double Morgantown’s.

Next highest was Los Angeles at 156.1, followed by Washington, D.C. (140.9) and Boston at 136.4.

Higginbotham also pulled up five other college communities from the ACCRA survey.

“When looking at other college towns in the eastern U.S., Morgantown falls in the middle with fellow Big East towns of Cincinnati, Ohio (94.3), Louisville, Ky. (97.6), and Pittsburgh, Pa. (95.2) with total indexes slightly below Morgantown,” Higginbotham said.

Charlottesville, Va., home of the University of Virginia, had a composite index of 107.1.

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.