Rural Cost of Living Index
Project Description
Rural Cost of Living Index
A partnership with Kansas Department of Commerce to understand and address a key technology challenge.
Project Details
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Community Partner: Kansas Department of Commerce
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Data Categories: Business / Finance Keywords: pricing, cost of living, commerce, rural, Kansas Data Type: Tabular Data
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Project Year: 2025
Project Resources
The Challenge
This project seeks to provide insight into the cost of living in all 105 counties in Kansas. While national statistics exist to estimate cost of living changes over time, these estimates do not adequately reflect changes in rural areas and cannot capture the variation in cost of living changes happening across Kansas. This project seeks to develop a web platform and mobile app for Kansans to upload receipts for the costs they experience in their lives. The information from these receipts is transformed into a consumer price index (CPI)-like estimate. These granular insights inform how prices have changed for Kansans across a range of products that typically go into cost-of-living calculations.