Via District, Measured.

We know, the cost of living in D.C. is sooooo much. Especially if you’re a millennial, right? RIGHT? Not so, according to some number crunching from District, Measured, the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis’s blog.

Inspired by Columbus, Ohio’s marketing pitch to get young Washingtonian’s to move to there because it’s supposedly cheaper, District, Measured crunched some numbers to find out if that’s actually the case. What it found is that D.C. is actually more affordable than most cities. That is, if you take the average salary into account.

While the median monthly rent for a one bedroom apartment in cities like Baltimore and Charlotte are about half of D.C.’s, the salaries in those cities are considerably less. Thus, the data gathered suggests that millennials living in expensive cities like D.C. and New York City actually have similar disposable incomes.

District, Measured define “millennials” as people between the ages of 18 and 34. They gathered data on median millennial earnings from the Census Bureau and rent data from zumper.com to compile this brief report.

As Housing Complex notes, “you can quibble with the methodology, particularly surrounding the purchasing power of that disposable income. But once you add in other factors, like the cost of transportation, some of the differences could actually be augmented, since it’s much easier to get by without a car in D.C. than in, say, Charlotte.” Some might argue about that, however.

Of course, this is data really only paints a positive portrait for one part of D.C. residents. As for a majority of residents, most of whom have lived here their entire lives? The situation isn’t so great.