From housing to daycare, utilities and other needs, it costs more to live on Long Island than most places

Kevin Johnson dreads the middle of every month, when text messages, phone calls and letters remind him of the bills that will eat up nearly all of his income.

There’s $1,250 for rent on his studio apartment inside a house in Stony Brook and $575 for car insurance on his 2008 Chevy Impala. 

Johnson, 44, works as a parts manager at an auto body shop, earning $25 an hour. He takes home about $600 to $700 per weekly paycheck, depending on his hours. After paying for Wi-Fi, a cell phone, groceries and laundry, Johnson said he’s often left with just $50 to $150. 

“You’re one tragedy or mistake away from being broke,” he said.

For many Long Islanders, the strain isn’t coming from one major expense, but from everything at once — housing, property taxes, electricity, transportation and childcare all running higher than in much of the rest of the country.

Data from Manhattan-based Moody’s Analytics indicates that Long Island’s cost of living exceeds the national average by 32%  when accounting for spending on housing, food, utilities and transportation.

Before the pandemic, Johnson said, it was easier to make ends meet even when he was earning less money working for a food distributor in a previous job.

“Everything went up,” he said. “but the wages they pay haven’t caught up to the cost of living at all.”

Economists cite a host of reasons for why prices are so much higher in Nassau and Suffolk counties, including proximity to New York City, high demand for a limited supply of commodities by a large population, many layers of government, and residents’ expectations for a high quality of life.

“Long Island’s high prices have to do with the attractiveness of the area and the scarcity of housing,” said Juan Carlos Conesa, co-chair of Stony Brook University’s economics department. “Any commutable suburb next to a strong, lively city is bound to be more expensive.”

The squeeze shows up across nearly every part of a household budget — but some costs stand out more than others.

Long Islanders face a brutal housing market 

The median price of a single-family home in Nassau, at $849,000, is more than twice that of a typical American home, and Suffolk isn’t far behind at $700,000, according to March sales data from OneKey MLS.

For many residents, housing alone can consume a disproportionate share of income, setting off a chain reaction across the rest of their finances.

In the past decade, the cost to buy a home in the region has doubled, data from brokerage Douglas Elliman and analyst Jonathan Miller show, even when excluding the pricier East End.

Long Island isn’t alone when it comes to high housing costs — prices in the San Francisco Bay Area are even higher — but the Island's market stands out because incomes have not kept up, said Adam Kamins, a senior regional economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“We’ve seen throughout the Northeast — and Long Island is clearly a part of this story — home prices have risen in a way that has outstripped income gains,” he said.

Buyers also contend with a historically low number of homes for sale in Nassau and Suffolk. That lack of supply is driven by limited undeveloped land, regulatory obstacles to building new housing, political and community opposition, and rising material and labor costs, Kamins said.

As a result, people in the metropolitan area, including Long Islanders, spend more of their income on housing than the rest of the country, said Bruce Bergman, a regional economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Renters here also face a disparity in housing costs. Long Island renters pay about 70% more than the national average, according to CoStar, an Arlington, Virginia-based provider of real estate data.  

The average monthly asking rent on Long Island was $3,030 across all unit types as of April 30, ranking fourth nationally behind only the New York City area (minus Long Island),   San Francisco and San Jose, said Jared Koeck, associate director of market analytics at CoStar. 

Even homebuyers who’ve saved enough for a down payment face obstacles.

Shawn Rutzel, a 39-year-old aspiring homebuyer who rents in Lake Grove, said he and his girlfriend both earn more than $100,000 a year but have struggled to get an offer accepted. In February, the couple thought they had a deal to buy a four-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in Holtsville. 

Rutzel said he had started to picture entertaining friends and family in the home’s backyard when the owner decided to accept another offer for more money — even though Rutzel had agreed to pay as much as $85,000 above the $780,000 list price, pending an appraisal.

“It’s like having the rug pulled out from under you,” he said.

The couple recently agreed to a deal on another house in Suffolk County but needed to spend more than they offered in February. “We’re pushing the limits of what we’re able to afford,” Rutzel said.

Property taxes remain among the nation's highest

Nassau has the highest property taxes of any county in the country, an average of $11,561 per household annually. Suffolk is No. 6, with households paying an average of $9,253 per year, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the nonprofit Tax Foundation in Washington.

Other counties with high property taxes nationwide include Putnam, Westchester and Rockland counties, north of New York City; Marin County, north of San Francisco; and Hunterdon County in New Jersey, the data shows.

Long Island’s many layers of government, including 124 school districts, and residents’ expectations of quality services — from police protection and garbage pickup to senior programs — help drive high property taxes, said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies.

“In other areas of the country, statewide broad-based taxes pay for a lot of services that we rely on the property tax to pay for, such as public education,” he said, adding that about two-thirds of a Long Islander’s tax bill goes to fund public schools.

Levy and others called the property tax “regressive” because rates don’t reflect the taxpayer’s ability to pay in the way income taxes do.

Still, most school budgets are approved by voters each spring, even if some grumble about the higher tax rate.

Bill Owens, 67, of Jericho, pays about $21,000 a year in property taxes on his three-bedroom house and immediately begins putting money aside for the next bill. 

“The taxes are a lot, but the teachers gave my two kids a great start in life,” Owens said.

Substantially lower property taxes  were a key reason why Doug Ports III and his wife, Nicole, chose to put down roots in South Carolina instead of on Long Island, where he was raised.

The couple, who have two children, pay $1,900 a year in property taxes on the new 3,200-square-foot home they bought last year in Murrells Inlet, near Myrtle Beach. Ports, 38, estimated the property taxes would be tens of thousands of dollars more had the couple settled in Suffolk.

The tax savings, together with South Carolina's lower cost of living in general, have meant the family can live on Nicole's salary as a technical auditor while Doug starts a laser refinishing business, Surface Savers Laser Restoration.

"Everything is so expensive in New York that I wouldn't be able to start a business unless I moved back into my parents' house in Miller Place with my whole family," he said.

Electricity prices add to the strain

Long Island’s electric rates – 24.57 cents per kilowatt-hour on average for PSEG-LI residential customers in 2024 – are slightly higher than the statewide average. New York State ranks No. 7 among the states in terms of residential electric rates, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

High demand and constraints on how much the grid can deliver  help to explain why electricity costs more in the metropolitan area, including Long Island, than upstate, experts said.

Electric rates rose this past winter as usage rose because of severe cold weather .  

While electricity may not be the largest expense, it’s one more cost that has become harder for some households to absorb.

“Families every day are making the impossible tradeoffs of keeping the lights on or putting essential food and medicine on the table,” said Ian Donaldson, a communications and policy aide at the Public Utility Law Project of New York, an Albany-based advocacy group.

Food has become harder to afford

Grocery prices in the metropolitan area, including Long Island, were 29% higher in March than they were in March 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

More Long Islanders are seeking food assistance, experts said.

In the parking lot of Harmony Healthcare in Hempstead late last month, volunteers with the Farm to Truck program, a free mobile farmers market, handed out fresh vegetables, eggs and milk to more than 100 people.

Pamela Faulkner, 60, said she needed help because the rising costs of rent, car insurance, groceries and health copays have become overwhelming.

“It’s stressful,” said Faulkner, who works 36 to 38 hours a week as a shift supervisor at a fast-food restaurant.

It was Faulkner's first visit  to the market. The need for the Farm to Truck program is growing among Long Islanders, said Harrison Smith, the mobile outreach and community services coordinator for Long Island Cares, a Hauppauge-based regional food bank that began running the initiative in March 2025.

“When the program first started, we were maybe seeing a few hundred people a month," he said. "Now we’re seeing thousands per month.” 

Long Island Cares, which distributes food at its seven food pantries on Long Island and to about 360 partner organizations, saw a 25% increase in demand for food distribution in March compared with the same month a year earlier, said Robert LaBarbara, the organization's vice president for procurement and operations.

“The cost of transportation, the cost of fuel, the cost of rent … I think that’s hitting people hard with their monthly finances,” he said.

The price of getting around

Cars are more expensive on Long Island than in the state and nation, and prices are rising faster.

The average transaction price of a new car in Nassau and Suffolk counties hit $49,533.58 in March, an 11.2% increase from four years earlier, and more than twice the rate that prices increased nationally, according to Cox Automotive, an Atlanta-based provider of automotive services and technology.

The average purchase price of a used car on Long Island was $33,614.47, a 9.24% hike over the same period, compared with 6.29% nationally.

Statewide, the average price rose 9.65% for a new car and 1.67% for a used car.

The cost of transportation is also prohibitive for a growing number of residents. But for workers who rely on cars to get to their jobs, those costs are nonetheless often unavoidable.

Programs offering transit support are seeing increased demand, as more residents struggle to get to work and school.

In 2017, the United Way of Long Island and the Nassau Inter-County Express bus system began partnering to offer Everyone Rides NICE, which gives access to public transportation for low- and moderate-income families.

From March 2025 to February 2026, the program provided 17,240 roundtrip MetroCards to 1,300 clients to help them get to work, school or doctor’s appointments, said Georgette Beal, senior vice president at the United Way, based in Deer Park. The number of clients served increased 8.3% from the previous program year.

For Long Beach resident Tiyani Harleston, the program enabled her to attend classes for a high school general equivalency diploma program run by the United Way and to work at a fast-food restaurant.

“I feel like it helps me a lot, especially being that I’m a mom and I don’t have a car at the moment,” said Harleston, 24.

Families squeezed by childcare costs

For some families, childcare costs rival or exceed housing expenses, forcing difficult tradeoffs.

The cost to care for an infant at a daycare center in New York is about 55.7% higher than the national average, according to Child Care Aware of America in Arlington, Virginia, a national nonprofit dedicated to expanding childcare accessibility. 

A separate market study by the New York State Office of Children and Family Services from 2024 reported the median cost of infant care in a daycare center was $409 a week, or about $21,000 annually, in a five-county area that included Long Island.

“We have families who literally call us crying because they need to work, but they can’t afford the cost of childcare,” said Jennifer Rojas, executive director of the Child Care Council of Suffolk, a nonprofit that helps parents find care.

For parents who can’t afford childcare, there are few options, Rojas said. Some find informal help from family or neighbors. Others quit their jobs. And some go into debt to pay.

The future cost of childcare is weighing on Morgan Steinmann, 31, as she and her husband prepare to welcome their first child later this year.

The couple, originally from Oceanside and Albertson, purchased a two-bedroom house in Rocky Point for $400,000 in August. But the house is more than 50 miles from family that the couple is counting on to help with childcare.

Steinmann, who works remotely as a care manager for a health system and also holds a part-time job as an emergency medical technician,  said it shouldn’t be this difficult for working Long Islanders to make ends meet.

“We were essentially promised by the older generation: work hard, and you'll be able to afford a house, you'll be able to afford a couple of kids," she said. "And it just feels like that's getting further and further away.”