The 15 U.S. cities with the highest cost of living—San Francisco isn’t No. 1

New York’s Manhattan borough is the most expensive place to live in the U.S. by a wide margin — the cost of living there is more than double the national average.

Living costs in Manhattan are 122% higher than average, according to data from The Council for Community and Economic Research’s Cost of Living Index, which measures regional price differences for everyday goods and services in 271 urban areas.

Manhattan isn’t just expensive, it’s considerably more costly than other highly ranked places in the index.

The New York borough’s cost of living is 24% more than Honolulu’s, the second-most expensive urban area in the U.S. And it’s 31% higher than San Francisco’s, the third-most expensive city, according to C2ER’s data.

The cost of living is expressed as a composite index score, based on six weighted categories: housing, utilities, groceries, transportation, health care and miscellaneous goods or services. A composite score of 100 is the national average, and any score higher than 100 is above average.

Here’s a look at the 15 most expensive urban areas, based on composite index scores. 

1. New York (Manhattan): 222
2. Honolulu: 179
3. San Francisco: 169.9
4. New York (Brooklyn): 159.1
5. Orange County, California: 150.3
6. Los Angeles (Long Beach): 149.1
7. Washington, D.C.: 148.7
8. Boston: 148.4
9. Seattle: 144.5
10. San Diego: 142.5
11. Arlington, Virginia: 140.1
12. Oakland, California: 140
13. New York (Queens): 136.3
14. Bethesda-Gaithersburg-Frederick, Maryland.: 135.8
15. Nassau County, New York: 135.2

A big driver of Manhattan’s high cost of living is housing expenses, which are 4.8 times the national average. In Honolulu and San Francisco, other cities known for extreme housing costs, they’re about three times the national average.

There are a couple of reasons why housing is so expensive in Manhattan. For one, New York is home to 340,000 millionaires and 58 billionaires, making it the wealthiest city in the world in terms of net worth. Many of these affluent families reside in Manhattan and are able to afford opulent…