Cost of Living
Clarksville-Montgomery County participates in the national ACCRA Cost of Living Index produced by the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). The Cost of Living Index provides a useful and reasonably accurate measure of living cost differences among urban areas. Items on which the Index is based have been carefully chosen to reflect the different categories of consumer expenditures. All items are priced in each place at a specified time and according to standardized specifications.
The ACCRA Cost of Living Index measures relative price levels for consumer goods and services in participating areas. It is based on more than 50,000 prices covering almost 60 different items for which prices are collected three times a year by chambers of commerce, economic development organizations or university applied economic centers in each participating urban area.
The composite index is based on six components - housing, utilities, grocery items, transportation, health care and miscellaneous goods and services. The average for all participating places, both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan, equals 100, and each participant’s index is read as a percentage of the average for all places.
The Index’s 2009 Annual Review lists Clarksville-Montgomery County as having a Cost of Living Index of 88.0, or 88%. Therefore, Clarksville-Montgomery County has a 12% lower than average cost of living. More specifically, Clarksville-Montgomery County has a cost of living index of 89.4% on grocery items, 78.7% on housing, 86.3 % on utilities, 89.9% on transportation, 94.9% on healthcare and 94.7% on miscellaneous goods and services.
