Cost of Living
The Chamber of Commerce conducts a cost-of-living analysis in Hastings 3 times a year. This is a measurement of the cost of the minimum standard of living in our community.
Heiden, our office manager, goes through all three grocery stores to find the cost of a predetermined list of goods and calls a variety of businesses to determine the competitive rate of services in our area. Once the collection of data is completed, she inputs the data into the software.
Now, you are probably wanting to know why someone would want to compare communities? The obvious answer is to compare the cost of living but it is so much more. Here are a few reasons why you might be interested in looking at the cost of living.
• If you are recruiting someone from another state, you could show them the difference in the cost of living between their current location and potentially moving to ours.
• Helps determine relief payments, social insurance benefits, family allowances, tax exemptions, and minimum wages.
• Some businesses choose to base raise increases on the cost of living in Hastings.
The Cost of Living Index measures relative price levels for consumer goods and services in participating areas. The average for all participating places, both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan, equals 100, and each participant’s index is read as a percentage of the average for all places.
