Methods

How the number is built

The Citizen Economic Index prices the same basic life in every year from 1980 to 2025. Then it counts how many weeks of take-home pay that life costs the typical household. The price and the pay always come from the same year. So we never need to adjust for inflation.

New to these terms? See What the words mean at the bottom of this page.

A worked example: rent in 2025

Start with pay The typical household earned $87,460 before tax. It kept $74,531 after federal income and payroll tax.
Find one week of pay $74,531 ÷ 52 weeks = $1,433
Price a year of rent $1,557 a month × 12 months = $18,684
Divide $18,684 ÷ $1,433 = 13.0 weeks of take-home pay

Do the same for all five bills. Then add them up. The same basic life took 25.5 weeks in 2025. That total is the Citizen Economic Index for 2025.

The same basic life in 2025, bill by bill

Each bill is rounded on its own. So the five bills can be off from the total by a tenth of a week.

The same basic life

The same basic life is a fixed list of what a middle-income household bought in 2019, in the same amounts every year. Each year we price that list at what people actually paid that year. Some households buy less when money is tight. That does not lower the number. The list stays the same.

The bill	What stays the same every year	Where each year's price comes from
Rent	Twelve months of the typical rent, with utilities	The Census Bureau's median gross rent. It comes from the census every ten years from 1970 to 2000. A test survey covers 2001 to 2004. The American Community Survey covers every year since 2005.
Groceries	18 everyday grocery items, in the amounts bought in 2019	Average store prices from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Gas	Enough gasoline to drive the same number of miles	Average gas prices, from the Energy Information Administration. Average miles per gallon, from the Federal Highway Administration and Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
A car	One new car every 10 years	The average price paid for a new car, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis
Health care	What a middle-income household paid for its own health care in 2019. That is its share of insurance premiums. It also counts copays and other costs insurance did not cover.	Each year, that 2019 amount moves with two things. One is the worker's share of a family health plan from a job. That comes from a survey by KFF, a health policy research group. The other is health spending per person not paid by insurance. That comes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The employer's share is never counted.

Take-home pay

Pay starts with the Census Bureau's median household income. That is the income of the household in the exact middle. Half of households earn more, and half earn less. From it we subtract federal income tax. We also subtract the worker's payroll tax, which pays for Social Security and Medicare. We figure both taxes for a married couple who both work and have no children. In 2025, the typical household earned $87,460 before tax. It kept $74,531 after these taxes.

For 2023 and earlier, federal income tax comes from TAXSIM. That is a free tax tool run by the National Bureau of Economic Research. For 2024 and later, it comes from the IRS's published rules. Payroll tax is the worker's rate set in law. The Social Security Administration publishes it. We do not subtract state and local income tax. Doing so would add a little under a week to the same basic life every year.

Rent between census years

The Census Bureau measured median rent in 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000. It has measured it every year since 2005. For the years in between, we start from the census figures. Then we follow the shape of the government's rent price index. That index is part of the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. We adjust the path so the line passes exactly through each census figure. This is called interpolation. The charts mark those years as estimates.

The years 2001 to 2004 come from the Census Bureau's test run of the American Community Survey. It was a smaller survey. Its design was different from the full survey that followed. The Bureau did not publish its usual yearly survey results for 2020. So we fill in 2020 from the years on either side, 2019 and 2021.

1970 is shown for rent only. That is because the grocery price series we use start in 1980. The 1970 census put median gross rent at $108 a month. Take-home pay that year was $7,171. So a year of rent took 9.4 weeks. That point is not in the national download, which starts in 1980.

Rent paid and the same apartment

Our main number uses the median rent people actually paid. That figure covers whatever homes people rent that year. The mix changes as new buildings open and old ones age. The CPI rent index works differently. It follows the same rented homes from one year to the next. Take the 2019 median rent and move it backward and forward with that index. That gives the cost of the same apartment in every year.

Year	Rent people paid, weeks of pay	The same apartment, weeks of pay
1980	10.5	11.6
2000	10.9	11.0
2014	12.8	12.6
2019	11.7	11.7
2025	13.0	12.1

Both measures say a year of rent takes more of the typical household's pay than it did in 2000. They disagree about the peak. Rent as paid took its biggest share of pay in 2024 and 2025. The same apartment peaked in 2014. That year it took 12.6 weeks. So we say rent as paid was at its highest in 2024 and 2025. We do not say the same home has never cost more. We are still looking into why the two lines differ. This section will say more when that work is done.

States

The map shows the same basic life for every state. A switch on the map shows rent alone. Each state's median gross rent and median household income come from the Census Bureau. The state figures run from 2000 to 2025. The survey behind the state figures measures income a little differently from the one behind the national number. So we adjust each state's pay by how it compares with the U.S. figure in that same survey. That way the U.S. on the map equals the national number exactly. Tax is figured at the national rate for that year. This is a shortcut. We plan to replace it with each state's own federal and state tax. Groceries, gas, the car and health care use the national average for every state. So for now, only rent and pay differ from state to state.

Counties and cities

Counties and cities appear when they have at least 65,000 people. That is the smallest size the Census Bureau's yearly American Community Survey reports on every year. Their figures run yearly from 2010. Figures for 2020 are estimates. The Bureau did not publish its usual yearly local results then. So we fill in each place from the years on either side.

Each place's rent and income come from that survey. We adjust each place's pay the same way we adjust the states' pay. We compare it with the U.S. figure in that same survey. So the U.S. on the map still equals the national number. Taxes are held at national levels. So are the prices of groceries, gas, the car and health care. Only rent and pay change from place to place.

Boundaries change over time. Cities take in new land. The Census Bureau also replaced Connecticut's counties with its planning regions. These are groups of towns that plan roads and services together. Connecticut's county figures and its planning-region figures are not joined into one line. Download the county and city data (CSV).

Who held office

For every office, we show who held it on July 1. That is the middle of the year. So each year gets one name, even when an office changed hands. Governors come from a table we built. We checked it against several public sources. We settled every disagreement by reading the record by hand. An acting governor is labeled as acting.

Presidents come from the public congress-legislators data file (unitedstates.github.io). House and Senate majorities come from the House and Senate history offices. The Supreme Court comes from the Court's own list of its members. The Court is shown as a count of justices picked by each party's presidents. That count says nothing about how any justice voted. A seat that was empty on July 1 is shown as vacant.

These records show who was in office. They make no claim that any party caused the number to rise or fall.

Related measures

American Compass's Cost-of-Thriving Index asks a related question. Oren Cass first published the method with the Manhattan Institute in 2020. That version covered housing, health care, transportation and education. The 2023 version added food. The index uses a typical full-time male worker's pay before taxes. That is the median weekly pay of men 25 and older. It counts how many weeks of that pay it takes to cover a middle-class family's basic costs. Those are food, housing, health care, transportation and college. It reports about 40 weeks in 1985. It reports about 62 weeks in 2022.

Scott Winship and Jeremy Horpedahl wrote a 2023 working paper for the American Enterprise Institute. They made corrections to that index. After their corrections, it rose about 10 weeks from 1985 to 2022. Without them, the rise is about 22 weeks. Once they adjust for gains in quality, it rose about 4 weeks. They find it falls once lower federal taxes are counted. They also find it falls once all full-time workers are included. They reject the approach as a way to judge living standards.

The Citizen Economic Index differs in four ways. It uses the typical household's pay after federal income and payroll tax. The other index uses one man's pay before tax. Ours holds one 2019 list of purchases fixed. It prices that list at each year's actual prices. It runs every year from 1980 to 2025, each priced the same way. And it shows every state for every year from 2000. The 2023 version of the other index has state figures for 2021 only.

Sources: American Compass, Cost-of-Thriving Index, 2023; Manhattan Institute, 2020; Winship and Horpedahl, American Enterprise Institute working paper, 2023.

The shaded range

Figure 1 in the report shows a gray range around the line for the same basic life. To build it, we rebuilt the number nine more times. Each time, we changed one pricing choice and kept everything else the same. Statisticians call this a sensitivity test. For each year, the shading runs from the lowest result to the highest. The choices are:

Rent priced as the same apartment (CPI rent index)
Gas priced as the same gallons each year instead of the same miles driven
Groceries priced by the CPI food-at-home index
Health care priced by out-of-pocket spending per person only
Health care at what middle-income households reported spending (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey)
Take-home pay without the 2013 Census survey change, which raised measured income (2013 on)
Take-home pay 3% lower, for Census survey nonresponse (2019 on)
Take-home pay 3% higher, for Census survey nonresponse (2019 on)
Rent in the 1980s and 1990s drawn straight between census years, without the CPI rent shape

Some choices apply only in some years. For example, the tests for households that did not answer the Census survey start in 2019. So each year's range uses the choices that apply to it. The line itself always sits inside the range. Under every choice in the range, the same basic life takes more weeks of pay in 2025 than in 2000. The gap is about 1 to 3 weeks.

Other tests appear in the data notes. They are outside the shaded range. One keeps a car 17 years instead of 10. One subtracts state and local income tax. One figures tax for a single filer. One uses a household at the 20th percentile of income, before tax. One removes the 2020 and 2021 relief checks.

We also ran two tests that change several of the choices above at once. These are outside the shaded range too. They show how far the comparison with 1980 can move:

This test changes three choices at once. Gas priced as the same number of gallons instead of the same miles. Groceries moved by the government's index of grocery prices. Pay without the Census Bureau's 2013 change to its income survey. Together, the same basic life took 1.1 weeks more in 2025 than in 1980. It took 25.8 weeks in 2025. It took 24.7 weeks in 1980.
This test changes two choices at once. Rent priced as the same apartment. Health care at what middle-income households reported spending. Together, the same basic life took 4.9 weeks fewer in 2025 than in 1980. It took 24.6 weeks in 2025. It took 29.5 weeks in 1980.

How it updates

A plain script, with no AI in it, rebuilds every number from saved public data files. It also checks them. Every update starts as a proposed change, with a list of each number that moved. Nothing goes live until a person reviews and accepts it. We are building a weekly check of the sources for new releases. Four inputs need a person to read each new release once a year. They are the KFF health survey, the IRS tax rules, average fuel economy and the car price.

Limits

The same basic life is about half the budget. It took 49 cents of each take-home dollar in 2025. Child care, car insurance and repairs, phone service and clothes are not in it.
Health care before 2000 is estimated from national health spending per person not paid by insurance. KFF's figures for the worker's share of a family plan from 1999 to 2011 were read from charts. KFF published those charts in its 2023 and 2024 surveys. A second, separate reading of the same charts matched every value.
The 2020 and 2021 relief checks raise take-home pay in those years. The data file also gives the number without them.
Rent is compared with the typical household's pay. Renters as a group earn less than the typical household.
The whole same basic life cannot be priced before 1980. The grocery price series we use start in 1980. 1970 is shown for rent only.
Health premiums in 2025: KFF changed its figures for earlier years in its 2025 survey. We keep KFF's earlier figures. KFF's 2024 survey put the worker's share of a family plan at $6,296 for 2024. Its 2025 survey put that same 2024 figure at $6,366. It put 2025 at $6,850. We grow our 2024 figure by KFF's own change from 2024 to 2025. The math is $6,296 × $6,850 ÷ $6,366 = $6,775. That $6,775 is our math, not a KFF figure. We use it only to measure how much the worker's share changed from 2024 to 2025. The health bill itself starts from a middle-income household's 2019 health spending. It moves with that change. It also moves with the change in spending not paid by insurance. So the bill can be smaller than the premium. Source: KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey, 2024 and 2025.
Some 2025 figures are not out yet. They are the car price, health spending not covered by insurance and fuel economy. Until the new figures come out, we use the 2024 levels.
Milk before 1995 is priced as two half-gallons. That is because the price series for a gallon starts in 1995. In the months when both exist, two half-gallons cost about 16 percent more than a gallon. So part of the drop in grocery costs since 1980 comes from this switch.

Data

National data, 1980 to 2025 (CSV) State data, weeks of pay for the same basic life and for rent (CSV) County and city data, weeks of pay for the same basic life and for rent (CSV)

Data built November 4, 2026.

What the words mean

Weeks of take-home pay: A year's cost divided by one week of the typical household's take-home pay. One week of pay is the yearly take-home pay divided by 52. If a year of rent costs 13 weeks of pay, the household works 13 weeks to cover it.
Take-home pay: Household income after federal income tax and payroll tax. State and local taxes are not subtracted.
Payroll tax: The Social Security and Medicare tax taken out of every paycheck.
Median: The middle value. Line everything up from lowest to highest. Take the one in the middle. Half are above it, and half are below it.
The typical household: The household with the median income. Half of American households earn more, and half earn less.
20th percentile: A household that earns more than 20 percent of households and less than the other 80 percent.
The same basic life (economists say fixed basket): The fixed list of purchases we price every year. It holds a year of the typical rent and 18 grocery items. It holds gas for the same miles and a new car every 10 years. It also holds the household's own health costs. All are in 2019 amounts.
Gross rent: Rent plus utilities (electricity, gas, water and heating fuel) when the renter pays them separately.
The Census Bureau: The federal agency that counts the population every ten years and runs large surveys of households in between.
The American Community Survey: The Census Bureau's large yearly survey of households. It is the source of rent and income for states, counties and cities since 2005. It replaced the long form of the census.
The Current Population Survey: A monthly Census Bureau survey. Its yearly questions about income give the national median household income we use.
Consumer Price Index (CPI): The government's monthly measure of how prices change. Its rent index follows the same rented homes over time.
Interpolated, or estimated: Filled in between two measured years. For rent between census years, we follow the CPI rent index so the line passes exactly through each census figure.
Census test survey: The smaller trial version of the American Community Survey that the Census Bureau ran from 2001 to 2004.
Out-of-pocket spending: Health spending not covered by insurance, such as copays, deductibles and prescriptions.
Worker's share of a family plan: The part of an employer health plan's premium taken from the worker's pay. The employer's part is not counted.
Fuel economy: How many miles the country's cars go, on average, on one gallon of gas.
Relief checks: The federal economic impact payments of 2020 and 2021. We count them as take-home pay.
The same apartment, or constant-quality rent: The 2019 median rent, moved backward and forward with the CPI rent index. It shows what the same home would have cost in each year.
Shaded range, or sensitivity band: The lowest and highest result when we change one pricing choice at a time. It shows how much the number depends on our choices.
Planning region: In Connecticut, a group of towns that plan roads and services together. The Census Bureau now reports Connecticut by these regions, not by county.
Who held office on July 1: For every office and year, we show the person or party in office on July 1 of that year. July 1 is the middle of the year. So each year gets one name, even when an office changed hands.