Hamilton Tops Cost of Living Index Rate List
The latest Cost of Living Index Rate – an effort to calculate and compare the cost of living in cities around the world – has Bermuda’s capital city of Hamilton at the very top of its list, coming in with a Consumer Price Index rating of 152.75 – more than 15 points above second ranked Geneva, Switzerland.
Switzerland dominates the list, with seven of the 10 highest rated cities hailing from that country.
The top 10 cities on the list are rounded out by Zurich, Switzerland [133.73], Basel, Switzerland [130.51], Zug, Switzerland [129.78], Lausanne, Switzerland [122.87], Stavanger, Norway [121.65], Bern, Switzerland [120.22], Tromso, Norway [118.59], and Lugano, Switzerland [112.32].
The top 10 cities on the Cost of Living Index Rate list:
Wow, look at this compared to our purchasing power index.
And the average Blue Color worker has not had a raise for 10 years.
WTF
Smurfs work in BDA?
And another PLP myth is born.
Good – keeps de small man out!
And why aren’t tourists coming here in droves? Maybe we should be a little more friendly to IB and the foreign talent they bring with them…which creates jobs for us so we can buy those $8 loaves of bread.
Is Johnny Barns friendly enough.
I’m sure that if there was a correlating chart for ‘over inflated expectations and greed ‘ we’d top that chart too .
Our consumer price index when compared to our purchasing power index doesn’t look good at all. Just by looking at the other cities we can see the huge difference. Our grocery index is extremely high as well.
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. This island doesn’t make much sense at all.
Unsustainable for all but the super wealthy and those living off them.
The purchasing power index indicates the average person in Hamilton can afford to buy 30% more typical goods and services in Hamilton than the average person in New York can afford to buy in New York.
That is despite the consumer price plus rent index being 30% higher than New York.
So it indicates that an average person here is significantly better off than an average person in New York.
Yikes. I know I feel the pain of grocery bills and other utilities, this chart just proves it. Goodness.
Import duties.
But that’s part of how it works.
Sad really.
Electricity and shipping costs are the main drivers
See^ Bermyman.
It’s actually the fuel costs that is the main driver.
We have lots of regulations and very HIGH TAXES to keep inefficient Goverments going that spend more than we have coming in.
Still borrowing $220Million per year to spend and that’s other peoples money not ours.
Still paying $170Million dollars per year in interest on the HUGE DEBT.
We are still only a small place with only 60,000 population.
There will be a financial attitude adjustment in the future as our economy is still going down. (803) less jobs last year but not in the civil service.
And your point is what in relation to the figures presented in this article? If we continue down the road of high costs, more people will continue to leave the island and less visitors will come to Bermuda. As a result, there will be less money in circulation and the government will lose even more revenue. Eventually the island’s debt burden will be too high and the island’s economy will collapse.
The island is just too expensive.
It should be noted this list is not compiled from objective sources. For example, it states the average 3 bedroom apartment in Bermuda rents for $5,333 per month based on random user input, not a scientific poll. These numbers are way off and thus skew the data. Not to say costs aren’t high but they are not properly reflected here. Grossly exaggerated in cases.
By the way spend on electricity is only 4% of GDP according to Dept of Stats. Far more is spent housing/mortgages, food, healthcare.
You have to look at all the numbers and the definitions of what they mean.
The Consumer Price Plus Rent Index indicates the total cost of living in Hamilton would be about 30% higher than New York.
However the Local Puchasing Power Index also indicates the average person living in Hamilton can buy 30% more ‘typical goods’ in Hamilton than the average person living in New York is able to buy.
So the doom and gloom interpretations are wrong.
Guess what – it is a meaningless statistic. How many people live in Hamilton as compared to those other cities? In fact, by global standards, you can hardly call Hamilton a city.