How we count

MeanCost publishes averages and medians from public tables, place by place, and links every number to the table it came from. Each page has a numbered Receipt at the bottom.

Where the numbers come from

• Census American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024 5-year estimates: rent, rent by bedrooms, rent burden, home value, owner costs, property tax paid, income, poverty, commuting, cars, internet. These are survey estimates with a margin of error; we show the margin on rents and leave out any figure whose coefficient of variation is above 20%.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics: wages by job (OEWS, May 2025), unemployment (LAUS), average weekly wages (QCEW), and prices (CPI for Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario).
• State and federal agencies: CDTFA sales tax rates, California Department of Finance population, EIA gasoline prices, FHFA house price index, HUD fair market rents, Covered California premiums.
• City and county documents: building permit fee schedules, trash rate sheets and other published fees, linked one by one in each page's Receipt.
• Funeral price lists that California requires funeral homes to post online.
• Our own records: amounts paid on Supercanic auto repair jobs in Riverside County. We only publish a job type once it has 15 or more paid jobs, and only as a median and middle range.

Our math

When a page says a rent is 7% under California, or that property tax is 0.78% of value, that is a ratio of two published medians. It describes the typical household, not yours. Medians do not add: median rent times twelve over median income is a guide to the typical squeeze, not anyone's real budget.

Quotes

When you ask for a quote, we send your request free to the best-reviewed local pro for that job near your ZIP, judged by public review ratings and how many reviews they have. They have 10 minutes to accept it. If they do not, it goes to the next pro, and the first one is told it moved on. Only the pro who accepts gets your name and phone. We do not charge you or the pro.

Found a wrong number?

Tell us and we will check it against the source.