Overall
Diff +2.5 RPP
Lancaster vs Kingston
Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Kingston is 2.5% more expensive than Lancaster.
2.5% more expensive
Kingston, NY is 2.5% more expensive than Lancaster, PA on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 100.7 vs 98.3). A $100,000 salary in Lancaster buys about the same as $102,495 in Kingston; the largest component gap is services.
- Overall RPP 98.3 (Lancaster) vs 100.7 (Kingston)
- $100k in Lancaster ≈ $102,495 purchasing power in Kingston
- Services drives the gap (+26.3 RPP points)
RPP parity plate
Pair PA:NY 98.3→100.7
TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-PAR
- TIER-NEAR Near tier
- CROSS-STATE PA × NY
- SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
- BENCH-CROSS Benchmark cross
- PP-PAR PP near-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.
Category Breakdown
Goods
Diff -1.0 RPP
Services
Diff +26.3 RPP
Rents
Diff +16.4 RPP
| Category | Lancaster | Kingston | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 98.3 | 100.7 | +2.5 |
| Goods | 100.7 | 99.7 | -1.0 |
| Services | 107.3 | 133.6 | +26.3 |
| Rents | 93.8 | 110.2 | +16.4 |
Visual Comparison
Overall
Lancaster 98.3
Kingston 100.7
Goods
Lancaster 100.7
Kingston 99.7
Services
Lancaster 107.3
Kingston 133.6
Rents
Lancaster 93.8
Kingston 110.2
Vertical line = national average (100)
What This Comparison Actually Tells You
Services creates the largest separation: Kingston is 26.3 points higher. But goods move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.
Kingston, NY is 2.5% more expensive than Lancaster, PA, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 2.5-point overall gap.
This route crosses the national benchmark: Kingston is above 100 while Lancaster is below it. That makes the move a change of price regime, not merely a rank swap.
Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.
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 Lancaster to $102,495 in Kingston, but it is not a personal spending weight.
Lancaster
98.3
Cost Index
Kingston
100.7
Cost Index
Salary Equivalents
What a salary in Lancaster would need to be in Kingston for the same purchasing power:
| In Lancaster | In Kingston | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $51,248 | +$1,248 |
| $75,000 | $76,872 | +$1,872 |
| $100,000 | $102,495 | +$2,495 |
| $150,000 | $153,743 | +$3,743 |
$ in Lancaster = in Kingston
Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (98.3 → 100.7), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.
How the Price Gap Changed
Lancaster and Kingston share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 7.0 to 2.5 RPP points. Kingston remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.
Rents changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 29.1 points between the first and latest shared releases (45.5 to 16.4 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.
| Release Year | Lancaster RPP | Kingston RPP | Relative Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 100.2 | 107.1 | 7.0 points Kingston higher |
| 2012 | 97.8 | 102.0 | 4.3 points Kingston higher |
| 2016 | 99.4 | 101.2 | 1.8 points Kingston higher |
| 2020 | 97.9 | 101.6 | 3.7 points Kingston higher |
| 2024 | 98.3 | 100.7 | 2.5 points Kingston 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kingston more expensive than Lancaster?
Kingston is 2.5% more expensive than Lancaster. The overall cost index is 100.7 vs 98.3 (national average = 100).
What salary in Kingston equals $100K in Lancaster?
A $100,000 salary in Lancaster has the same purchasing power as $102,495 in Kingston. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.
How do rents compare between Lancaster and Kingston?
Rents in Lancaster are indexed at 93.8 while Kingston is at 110.2 (national average = 100). Kingston has higher rents.
Data sources
- BEA Regional Price Parities (RPP), the cost-of-living indices shown on this page
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), gross-rent observations behind the rents component
- BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI), goods and services price relatives
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), labor-driven services component
- HUD Fair Market Rents (FMR), 40th-percentile rent cross-reference
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.