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Wednesday 30 August 2023

Single people in Hawaii need to make an average of $112,411 to get by, a study has found. Here's how US living wages compare in the most expensive states.

Piggy banks on a green background. — It's costly to be single in the US.
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Hawaii is the most expensive place for single people to live in the US, an analysis found.
Single people need an annual paycheck of $112,411 to make a living wage in the state, per the data.
The cost of living for single people is often higher than for couples.

The cost of living for single people is often dramatically higher than their coupled-up counterparts. But while the so-called "singles tax" is nothing new, single people in some US states may be faring better than others.

An analysis from GoBankingRates, a personal finance website, found that Hawaii was the most expensive place for single people to live in the US. They need around $112,000 to make a living wage in the state, which is more than double the US median salary of $57,200, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed.

Mississippi was ranked the cheapest state in the US, where single people only needed to make $45,906 a year to earn a living wage, per the analysis.

The study used survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate the cost of annual necessities for a single person state by state. The researchers then doubled the cost of necessities to factor in discretionary spending and savings.

Here's how the cost of living varies per state in five of the most expensive states.