Overall
- Brunswick-St. Simons
- 87.7
- Watertown-Fort Drum
- 87.7
Diff -0.0 RPP
Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Watertown-Fort Drum is 0% less expensive than Brunswick-St. Simons.
Watertown-Fort Drum, NY is 0% less expensive than Brunswick-St. Simons, GA on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 87.7 vs 87.7). A $100,000 salary in Brunswick-St. Simons buys about the same as $99,979 in Watertown-Fort Drum; the largest component gap is services.
RPP parity plate
Pair GA:NY 87.7→87.7
PHOTO-FINISH · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BOTH-BELOW · PP-PAR
Instrument codes from this pair's BEA Regional Price Parities (overall · goods · services · rents · national benchmark 100 · purchasing-power conversion), not a ranking or recommendation.
Brunswick-St. Simons, GA and Watertown-Fort Drum, NY are a photo finish on overall price level, only 0.0 RPP points apart. A salary conversion is therefore a fine adjustment, not evidence of a fundamentally different cost regime.
Services creates the largest separation: Watertown-Fort Drum is 44.9 points higher. But services and goods move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.
Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.
Both metros remain below the U.S. benchmark of 100. This comparison chooses between two below-average price levels; “more expensive” here does not mean nationally expensive.
For a service-heavy household, test childcare, health, and other locally supplied costs before relying on rent alone. The BEA ratio converts $100,000 in Brunswick-St. Simons to $99,979 in Watertown-Fort Drum, but it is not a personal spending weight.
Diff -0.0 RPP
Diff +3.4 RPP
Diff +44.9 RPP
Diff -3.2 RPP
| Category | Brunswick-St. Simons | Watertown-Fort Drum | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 87.7 | 87.7 | -0.0 |
| Goods | 96.3 | 99.7 | +3.4 |
| Services | 87.3 | 132.2 | +44.9 |
| Rents | 56.3 | 53.2 | -3.2 |
Vertical line = national average (100)
Brunswick-St. Simons and Watertown-Fort Drum share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 5.3 to 0.0 RPP points. Brunswick-St. Simons remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.
Services changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 18.1 points between the first and latest shared releases (63.0 to 44.9 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.
| Release Year | Brunswick-St. Simons RPP | Watertown-Fort Drum RPP | Relative Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 88.2 | 93.5 | 5.3 points Watertown-Fort Drum higher |
| 2012 | 89.9 | 98.8 | 8.8 points Watertown-Fort Drum higher |
| 2016 | 89.2 | 98.4 | 9.2 points Watertown-Fort Drum higher |
| 2020 | 89.0 | 90.7 | 1.8 points Watertown-Fort Drum higher |
| 2024 | 87.7 | 87.7 | 0.0 points Brunswick-St. Simons higher |
Annual BEA Regional Price Parity releases; a higher index means a higher price level relative to the national average of 100. Selected years shown from the full shared series.
What a salary in Brunswick-St. Simons would need to be in Watertown-Fort Drum for the same purchasing power:
| In Brunswick-St. Simons | In Watertown-Fort Drum | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $49,990 | $-10 |
| $75,000 | $74,985 | $-15 |
| $100,000 | $99,979 | $-21 |
| $150,000 | $149,969 | $-31 |
Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (87.7 → 87.7), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.
Watertown-Fort Drum is 0% less expensive than Brunswick-St. Simons. The overall cost index is 87.7 vs 87.7 (national average = 100).
A $100,000 salary in Brunswick-St. Simons has the same purchasing power as $99,979 in Watertown-Fort Drum. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.
Rents in Brunswick-St. Simons are indexed at 56.3 while Watertown-Fort Drum is at 53.2 (national average = 100). Brunswick-St. Simons has higher rents.
Every figure on PlainCost is rendered directly from BEA Regional Price Parity source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-11. Rankings measure the published cost-of-living index only; we don't recommend where to live or rate any metro's quality of life.