The concept of selling Tucson as a "low-cost" region is as stale as last month's bread.
A new quarterly cost-of-living survey shows the metro area within a fraction of 1 percent of the national average.
In fact, metro Tucson hovered between 100.3 and 98.6 in the four surveys of 2006 for all items. The national average is considered to be 100 percent.
"The cost of living is not low here. It's another myth we need to get over," said Marshall Vest, veteran economic forecaster at the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management. "We've been very close to the national average for a long time."
In terms of recruiting new companies or new employees from out of town, of course, the value of our cost of living depends on what our numbers are compared to.
"Compared to Los Angeles or San Francisco or Portland, we're cheap. Compared to cities in the Midwest, we're expensive," Vest said.
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But when you compare the area to the national average, we're just plain average.
Housing costs, which make up 30 percent of an area's score in the survey, went up in the Tucson area from a significantly below-average score of 85 in the first quarter of 2004 to 99.2 in the fourth quarter last year.
In the fourth quarter, the cost of grocery items, transportation and health care in the Tucson area exceeded the national average, while utilities, miscellaneous items and housing were slightly below 100.
The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce survey put the cost of living index in the state's largest metro area at 102.5 in the fourth quarter.
Cost of living is an important factor in selling an area, said Laura Shaw vice president of marketing and communications for Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc., or TREO, the area's job creation and retention superagency.
"Being at the baseline is positive," Shaw adds, "especially if we're below competing cities."
"It depends on who you're being compared to," she said.
The cost-of-living surveys are conducted by the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. To conduct the survey, chamber officials here search for exactly the same products and services in multiple locations. The prices they find are compared to surveys of the same products in around 300 markets nationwide.
A chamber official said she finds it disconcerting that while the area's costs are near the national average, incomes remain on the low side.
"It doesn't feel right" to see wages lagging behind costs, said Paula Stuht, vice president for business development at the chamber.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security reported that Arizona average per capita personal income in 2004 was 87 percent of the U.S. income, which stood at $33,090. Maricopa County was at 96 percent of the national figure and Pima County stood at 82 percent that year, the latest for which these statistics are available.
Tucson cost of living
Data from the Council for Community and Economic Research's ACCRA Cost of Living Index shows the Tucson metro area is close to the national average in part because of rising housing costs, which account for 30 percent of the survey results.
Metro areas are scored according to a weighted combination of all items surveyed, as well as individual categories such as housing. In each quarter, the national average is set at 100.
Year Quarter All items Housing
2006 4 99.8 99.2
2006 3 98.8 96.2
2006 2 98.6 99.5
2006 1 100.3 97.6
2005 4 97.3 90.5
2005 3 97.4 91
2005 2 96.6 87.2
2005 1 96.2 83.2
2004 4 94.4 85.4
2004 3 95 87.4
2004 2 98.1 88.3
2004 1 96.1 85