Trove Technologies, Inc. has released its first annual Trove Discretionary Income Study showing that the city of Jacksonville ranks No. 2 out of 10 large cities in the South Atlantic for discretionary income, while the state of Florida ranks first in the region.
The Trove Discretionary Income Study incorporates data that reflect regional differences in salaries, cost of living and taxes to most accurately reveal the take home pay of American workers across 778 occupations. While there are many “cost-of-living” calculators that highlight general income differences across cities, said the team from Trove Technologies, there are no others that take into account the effect of taxes on the cost of living or identify the significant differences by occupation.
“Jacksonville is one of the top cities in the South Atlantic when it comes to enabling workers to keep more of what they earn,” said Michael Pao, co-founder of Trove Technologies, a storage company based in San Francisco. “Our research finds that housing is substantially more affordable in Jacksonville than the rest of the state and region, with housing expenses coming in at 17 percent lower than the state average and 17.8 percent lower than the regional average. Although gross salaries are slightly lower in Jacksonville compared to other large cities in the South Atlantic, workers in Jacksonville like other Florida cities, benefit from higher take-home pay than their peers in other states due to paying no state income tax.”
Some of the other major findings from the study for Jacksonville include the following:
· Jacksonville ranks No. 2 among 13 large metropolitan areas in the South Atlantic and No. 22 out of 63 large metropolitan areas in the United States for discretionary income across all occupations.
· Housing expenses are 16 percent lower than the regional average and 17 perecent lower than the state average among large metros in Florida.
· Jacksonville ranks No. 1 among large metros in the South Atlantic for middle class occupations, education, training and library occupations, transportation and material moving occupations.
· Florida ranks No. 1 in the South Atlantic region while ranking No. 20 out of all states nationally for discretionary income.
The data underlying this analysis is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Tax Foundation, and the Council for Community and Economic Research. Using a proprietary algorithm, Trove developed the tool and map. The full methodology is outlined here.
Trove is a technology company that helps customers pack, move and store personal and household items, as well as maximize excess inventory of small, locally-based moving companies. Visit https://www.mytrove.com/ for more information.
