The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has recently published its Worldwide Cost of Living Index for 2022. In this edition, New York and Singapore jointly top the rankings as the world’s most expensive cities to live in, while last year’s number one, Tel Aviv, now ranks in third place.

This is the first time New York City has topped the list. This partly comes down to the United States’ high rates of inflation this past year. As shown by our chart, Los Angeles and San Francisco are also among the world’s most expensive metropolises. However, the roundup also includes four European cities: Zurich, Geneva, Paris and Copenhagen. In Western Europe, price increases were mainly attributable to rising gas prices, as well as the unequal valuation of the euro, as cited by the EIU.

The annual index compares prices of more than 200 everyday products and services such as food, clothing, rent and transport in 172 cities around the world. The cities included in the study are compared with the base city of New York, with an index set at 100.

According to this year’s index, the average cost of living in the world’s largest cities increased by 8.1 percent in 2022, as a repercussion of the war in Ukraine and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The war in Ukraine, Western sanctions on Russia and China’s zero-Covid policies have caused supply-chain problems that, combined with rising interest rates and exchange-rate shifts, have resulted in a cost-of-living crisis across the world,” Upasana Dutt, who was responsible for leading the research, said in a statement. Dutt added that the average price increase in the cities analyzed is “the strongest we’ve seen in the 20 years for which we have digital data.”

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