<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Using the Geographic Assessor > Frequently Asked Questions > Data Background Information > Data Background FAQ #7 Frequently Asked Questions

QUESTION:  Why are there multiple cost-of-labor comparisons available for a city when the results are the same?  For example, when analyzing geographic differentials for our San Diego location, I found that all of the various San Diego neighborhoods have the same results. 

 

In the Geographic Assessor, a city is defined generally, in terms of cost of labor, to correspond to the city limits.  This is done primarily for two reasons: (1) salary data are often surveyed by city (a city is sometimes surveyed as a larger "Metro Area," but typically not as a smaller unit); and (2) labor has the ability to flow, which tends to equalize differentials across a commuting distance.  Often the smallest unit of a labor market is a commuting radius.  The Geographic Assessor reports the same cost of labor for all sub-sections of a city. 

 

However, in terms of cost of living, certain areas of a city (defined as neighborhoods) can have very different housing costs – typically a large component of living costs.  As such, cost of living has much less meaning at the city-level for larger cities that often have dramatic differences in house or rental prices by neighborhood. 

 

Taken together, the Geographic Assessor will report different cost-of-living differentials by neighborhood, but reports cost of labor by city.  Neighborhoods are identified in the Assessor Series as following the hyphen after the city name.  For example, San Diego-Bay Park, California, is a neighborhood of San Diego, California, so both will have the same cost of labor, but may have different costs of living.