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According to a new study, Mississauga is a very expensive place to live.
How expensive? Insurance provider PolicyAdvisor recently ranked Mississauga the second-most expensive city to live in, relative to average income, in North America — behind only New York.
Four of the five most expensive cities on PolicyAdvisor’s list were Canadian. Vancouver ranked third, with Hamilton and Toronto rounding out the top five in fourth and fifth, respectively.
The study looked at the 10 biggest cities by population in both Canada and the United States and ranked them based on cost of living compared to average income. Based on the 2021 census, Mississauga was ranked Canada’s seventh-largest city based on population.
PolicyAdvisor calculated cost of living based on the average cost of eight items in each city, including: a cinema ticket, a meal out, a bottle of water, a cappuccino, one month of gym membership, a one-way ticket and a monthly ticket on public transit, and a month’s rent.
“The combined cost of these items was calculated as a percentage of the average monthly salary to find out where to live most affordably,” wrote PolicyAdvisor in the report, adding all calculations were done in U.S. dollars.
The Toronto Real Estate Board reported a monthly average rent for a studio apartment in the first quarter of 2022 of $1,743, a one bedroom at $2,181, a two bedroom at $2,658 and a three-bedroom unit at $3,096.
PolicyAdvisor found that a monthly public transit pass was the third highest among the 20 cities looked at in the study at $111.30, behind New York at $129.50 and Toronto at $120.
“These numbers, compared to an average monthly salary of just $3,202.30 (the fourth lowest after Hamilton, Montreal and Winnipeg), make this city an expensive one in terms of lifestyle, with the eight items measured equating to 56.4 per cent of their monthly income,” PolicyAdvisor said.
The full list of the 20 most-expensive cities in North America, according to the study, along with the average cost of the eight items used in PolicyAdvisor’s calculations is as follows:
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