HARTFORD, CT — Hartford has been named the most expensive place to live in the United States, overtaking New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, in a new national ranking released by U.S. News and World Report.
According to U.S. News reporter Erika Giovanetti, the ranking was based on more than just real estate values.
“We are looking at incomes as well as housing costs. Hartford ranked at the very top of our list for the percentage of income that is spent on housing,” Giovanetti said.
That metric, commonly referred to as housing cost burden, was a key driver.
The Connecticut-based nonprofit Partnership for Strong Communities recently found that more than half of Hartford renters are cost-burdened, meaning they spend at least 30% of their income on housing.
Giovanetti said the ranking methodology incorporated federal datasets from the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Census Bureau, and the outlet’s own 2024–25 public survey for its best places to live list.
The ranking focused strictly on cities, excluding data from surrounding metro areas or suburbs.
“Hartford ranked as the number one most expensive city for three main reasons: low incomes, high cost of living and poor price parity,” Giovanetti said. She explained that price parity measures how goods and services compare in cost from city to city, and Hartford performed poorly in that comparison.
While goods and services were found to be pricier than in other cities, income levels in Hartford lagged. In the job market category, Giovanetti said, “Hartford did not rank very well. The unemployment rate is about double the national average.”
The report placed New Haven among the top five most expensive cities as well, due to similar cost burdens and labor market instability.
Giovanetti added that the findings emerged from a broader project on best places to live, which considered affordability alongside other factors.
“Another factor to think about when you’re looking at the expense isn’t just the high demand, high cost, but also the job market of the place where you’re looking to live, the income that you can expect to bring in, and the stability that you’ll have with unemployment,” she said. “Hartford just didn’t perform as well.”
