The "singles tax" for living alone can add up to thousands of dollars each year, a new study by real estate marketplace Zillow finds. Unsurprisingly, it's highest in New York City.
In the Big Apple, single renters spend an average of $40,200 per year to live alone in a one-bedroom home. Couples can split that cost, however, so that they each pay around $20,100 per year.
The extra $20,100 that New York City solo dwellers pay in "singles tax" is more than double the national average of $7,110, per Zillow data.
Here are the most expensive cities to live alone, based on the average extra costs for single dwellers in 2023:
- New York City: $20,100
- San Francisco: $13,438
- San Jose, California: $11,967
- Washington, D.C.: $11,452
- Boston: $11,399
- San Diego: $10,849
- Seattle: $10,825
- Atlanta: $9,000
- Denver: $8,984
- Los Angeles: $8,857
The cities with the highest singles tax tend to be places with some of the largest housing costs in the U.S.
In New York City, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,350, which is 2.8 times the average rent across the U.S., according to Zillow.
"New York City has historically been one of the most expensive rental markets in the country, but in the past couple of years rents across the city have skyrocketed to their highest levels yet," Kenny Lee, an economist at Zillow-owned real estate marketplace StreetEasy, tells CNBC Make It.
"The city has been facing a problem that's been decades in the making of growing renter demand outpacing the creation of new housing supply," Lee adds.
To calculate average rent prices in 2023, Zillow used a combination of U.S. Census data and its own rental listings. Prices in New York are based on rental data from StreetEasy.
The singles tax isn't limited to housing
Housing costs might be the most obvious financial burden for single people living on their own. However, there are other costs as well, including food, housing, medical care, transportation and entertainment.
Here's the cost of a year's worth of expenses in New York City, excluding taxes, according to estimates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The figures are measured in 2022 inflation-adjusted dollars.
- Single-person household: $39,130 a year
- Two-person household, both working: $56,033 a year
Notably, a couple's typical expenses aren't merely double what a single person pays. That's because expenses like food, transportation and entertainment can offer cost efficiencies that favor couples who split their expenses.
Take food, for instance. As anyone who's shopped at Costco knows, food sold in larger quantities tends to have a lower per-unit cost. While a couple or family can take advantage of those savings, larger portion sizes might be impractical for a single person, especially for perishable goods.
That said, the cost of housing is by far the biggest obstacle to living alone. Even in states where the "singles tax" is closer to $7,110 annually, it's still the biggest expense in most people's budgets.
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