National ranking · 2024 BEA RPP, goods
Metros with the highest goods prices
The 25 U.S. metros with the highest goods price index, food, apparel, electronics, and household items. Kahului-Wailuku tops the list at a goods RPP of 111.6. Goods vary far less across metros than rents, so even the priciest sit close to the national average.
- 25
- Metros ranked
- 111.6
- #1 - Kahului-Wailuku
- 109.4
- Its overall RPP
The verdict
Goods barely move across metros: this top-25 list spans just 6.4 RPP points top to bottom, and Kahului-Wailuku's goods index runs 2.2 points above its own overall RPP.
- 6.4 pts
- goods spread, #1 to #25
- 111.6
- #1 - Kahului-Wailuku
- 105.2
- goods threshold to enter top-25
According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis's 2024 Regional Price Parities, Kahului-Wailuku leads the 25 metros with the highest goods index at 111.6. The final metro on this list is 105.2. Goods cover tradable everyday items and vary less across metros than rents or services; this index is a relative benchmark, not a checkout-price quote.
- Kahului-Wailuku ranks #1 of 25 metros by goods RPP
- Goods RPP 105.2 is the threshold to enter this top-25 list
According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, goods prices are the most stable cost category across the country, most metros sit between a goods RPP of 95 and 110. This ranking uses the goods component of the agency's 2024 Regional Price Parities, released on February 19, 2026. See our methodology for how the index is built.
How tight the goods spread really is
Where the top-25 cutoff of 105.2 sits among all 387 U.S. metros
105 Top 10% higher than 90% of 387 US metros
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more US metros. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities · 2024
This ranking sorts the 25 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas with the highest goods RPP from the most recent BEA Regional Price Parities release. The goods component captures tradable items, food, clothing, electronics, household furnishings, and excludes housing rents and services. Goods prices vary far less across U.S. geographies than rents do (most metros sit between RPP-Goods of 95 and 110), because tradable goods participate in nationally integrated supply chains. The metros at the top of this list, typically Hawaii's island markets and West Coast port-distant locations, face shipping and import-cost premiums that show up directly in retail prices.
Use this ranking when planning a relocation if your household budget is goods-heavy (large family, growing children, many durable purchases per year). For households dominated by housing or services costs, see the highest-rent metros or highest-services metros rankings respectively. The numbers below come directly from PlainCost's BEA-sourced database, every value is the published BEA figure, not an estimate.
| # | Metro area | Goods | Overall | Services | Rents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kahului-Wailuku, HI | 111.6 | 109.4 | 190.6 | 119.2 |
| 2 | Urban Honolulu, HI | 111.6 | 111.0 | 187.3 | 135.5 |
| 3 | New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 110.3 | 112.6 | 127.0 | 148.6 |
| 4 | Kiryas Joel-Poughkeepsie-Newburgh, NY | 110.3 | 109.4 | 136.8 | 115.8 |
| 5 | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 108.5 | 115.6 | 172.6 | 194.7 |
| 6 | San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA | 108.0 | 111.9 | 174.2 | 179.3 |
| 7 | Anchorage, AK | 107.3 | 105.4 | 111.8 | 109.9 |
| 8 | Fairbanks-College, AK | 107.3 | 103.2 | 119.8 | 92.6 |
| 9 | Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 107.3 | 103.6 | 83.6 | 112.0 |
| 10 | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 106.6 | 113.6 | 158.6 | 170.4 |
| 11 | Kenosha, WI | 106.2 | 101.1 | 85.9 | 95.8 |
| 12 | Albany, OR | 105.3 | 102.1 | 104.8 | 101.1 |
| 13 | Bend, OR | 105.3 | 103.6 | 105.0 | 110.0 |
| 14 | Corvallis, OR | 105.3 | 104.0 | 108.6 | 114.4 |
| 15 | Eugene-Springfield, OR | 105.3 | 101.6 | 102.5 | 98.3 |
| 16 | Grants Pass, OR | 105.3 | 97.8 | 103.6 | 79.9 |
| 17 | Medford, OR | 105.3 | 101.4 | 102.3 | 97.7 |
| 18 | Salem, OR | 105.3 | 103.6 | 104.7 | 110.3 |
| 19 | Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 105.2 | 105.4 | 107.0 | 125.1 |
| 20 | Bakersfield-Delano, CA | 105.2 | 100.9 | 158.3 | 90.3 |
| 21 | Chico, CA | 105.2 | 101.2 | 158.8 | 91.9 |
| 22 | El Centro, CA | 105.2 | 95.2 | 157.2 | 66.3 |
| 23 | Fresno, CA | 105.2 | 102.2 | 161.0 | 95.7 |
| 24 | Hanford-Corcoran, CA | 105.2 | 101.6 | 157.4 | 93.5 |
| 25 | Merced, CA | 105.2 | 98.3 | 158.3 | 78.6 |
What this means for you
How to weigh a goods-heavy budget before you shortlist a move.
- Kahului-Wailuku tops the list at goods RPP 111.6, the steepest tradable-goods premium PlainCost tracks. See full profile
- Goods prices vary far less than rents across metros (most sit within RPP 95-110), so a metro topping this list can still be affordable overall if its rents run low. Highest-rent metros
Goods RPP is BEA's annual tradable-items benchmark for the data year shown, not a live retail-price index, and reflects the market basket BEA prices, not any one household's actual purchases.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis · Regional Price Parities Sourced from the BEA Regional Data API; 25 metros shown. National average = 100.
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.