AACRA Cost of Living Index: ACCRA produces the ACCRA Cost of Living Index to provide a useful and reasonably accurate measure of living cost differences among uban areas. Items on which the Index is based have been carefully chosen to reflect different categories of consumer expenditures. Weights assigned to relative costs are based on governement survey data on expenditure patterns for professional and executive households. All items are priced in each place at a specified time and according to standardized specifications.

Interpreting the Index: The ACCRA Cost of Living Index measures relative price levels for consumer goods and services in participating areas. The average for all participating places, both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan, equals 100, and each particiapant's index is read as a percentage of the average for all places.