Cost of living

Massachusetts does not order more because it costs more to live here

While Massachusetts is an expensive state, six places cost more to live in, and every one of them orders less child support for the same family at equal parenting time. Five of the six order less even when one parent has the children full time.

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Places that cost more to live in than Massachusetts and order less child support at equal parenting time

The same two incomes and three children, in every state

I pay child support in Massachusetts myself, so I have a stake in the outcome. Every order on this page is for the same family in every state: two incomes of $201,000 and $29,640 a year, three children and no child care, the worked example used across this site.

Cost-of-living figures are the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis's Regional Price Parities for 2024, all items, in data/bea/SARPP_STATE_2008_2024.csv. The join is model/cost_of_living.py, checked by model/test_cost_of_living.py.

Every place that costs more to live in than Massachusetts orders less at equal time

The usual defence of the Massachusetts amounts is that Massachusetts is expensive, so its child support should be too. The federal government publishes a cost-of-living index for every state, where the U.S. average is 100. Massachusetts scores 105.8. California, Hawaii, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York and Washington all score higher, and at equal parenting time every one of them orders less than Massachusetts for the same family.

Place	Cost of living	Equal time, per month	Primary custody, per month
California	110.7	$2,424	$3,436
Hawaii	110.0	$2,774	$5,821
District of Columbia	109.9	$2,254	$3,468
New Jersey	108.8	$3,002	$3,002
New York	107.9	$4,068	$4,068
Washington	107.0	$2,820	$2,820
Massachusetts	105.8	$4,388	$4,714

Every place that costs more to live in than Massachusetts orders less at equal time.

Monthly order at the same incomes, costliest place first, at equal time and at primary custody.

Cost of living: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, all items, U.S. average 100. Three children, $201,000 and $29,640 a year, no child care.

Source: model/cost_of_living.py · data (CSV)

Massachusetts charges more for joint custody than five of the six costlier places charge for primary custody

The gap is widest where it matters most. Massachusetts orders $4,388 a month when the parents split the time equally. California, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York and Washington all order less than that even when the other parent has the children full time. One fact runs against this: at primary custody Hawaii orders $5,821, more than Massachusetts’s $4,714, and it is the only costlier place that does.

Across all fifty states, the cost of living does not explain the Massachusetts amount

The states with a cost of living just below Massachusetts order well below it too. Maryland scores 105.0 and orders $2,310 at equal time, New Hampshire scores 104.2 and orders $3,839, and Connecticut scores 103.6 and orders $3,138. Plotted across all fifty, Massachusetts sits alone at the top of the chart while the costliest places sit well below it.

Massachusetts orders the most at equal time, and it is not the most expensive place to live.

Each dot is one state: its cost of living against its equal-time order for the same family.

Georgia is held out of the fifty-state comparison. Cost of living: BEA Regional Price Parities, all items.

Source: model/cost_of_living.py · data (CSV)

One family, one year of prices, and a cost-of-living measure that includes housing

Every order here is for one family at one set of incomes, the worked example this site uses throughout, so the comparison shows how each state treats that family and does not average across families. The cost-of-living figures are for 2024 and cover all items, housing included, which is the cost a parent keeping a second home for the children actually faces. Georgia is held out of the fifty-state comparison, so it is absent here.

Check it yourself

Every number on this page is read from the two published sources, not typed.

• model/cost_of_living.py Joins the 2024 cost-of-living figures to the fifty-state orders and prints the table above.
• model/test_cost_of_living.py Pins every claim on this page, including the Hawaii exception.
• fig13_cost_of_living.csv Every state's cost of living and both orders.
• The fifty-jurisdiction comparison How each state's order was computed and checked.