London-world’s second most expensive city

The Telegraph has a story about the latest annual Cost of Living Survey of 143 world cities carried out by Mercer Human Resource, and people who live here won’t be surprised that London is rated the second most expensive city in the world to live in after Moscow.

Mercer compare the cost of over 200 items in each city including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment to reach a rating and the survey is used by governments and multinationals to decide how much to compensate expatriate workers.

London’s ridiculous property prices and expensive public transport (three times that of New York and Sydney) have contributed to London’s rise up the rankings, but I think its also the punitive taxes that are now slapped on everything by central and local government that are also killing people’s spending power, and they’re especially fond of using the words ‘global warming’ to justify every tax hike.

In Mercer’s survey New York is given the base score of 100 points and other cities are ranked higher or lower than that. Here are the top 20 and their scores.

1. Moscow 134.4
2. London 126.3
3. Seoul 122.4
4. Tokyo 122.1
5. Hong Kong 119.4
6. Copenhagen 110.2
7. Geneva 109.8
8. Osaka 108.4
9. Zurich 107.6
10. Oslo 105.8
11. Milan 104.4
12. St. Petersburg 103
13. Paris 101.4
14. Singapore 100.4
15. New York City 100
16. Dublin 99.6
17. Tel Aviv 97.7
18. Rome 97.6
19. Vienna 96.9
20. Beijing 95.9