# True Cost Of Living Analysis Project

> TrueCOLA publishes, every month, the dollar gap between what Americans earn and what living actually costs: income, essential costs, and the margin left over, for all 435 U.S. congressional districts, across seven household types (a single working adult, two adults, the median household, a single retiree, a retired couple, and one and two Social Security recipients), with renter and homeowner tracks.

Key facts:

- Numbers are computed from official public sources; the Methodology page explains every step.
- Current report month: **July 2026** (2026-07).
- We do not lobby, endorse candidates, or tell anyone how to vote.

## July 2026 national headlines (renter track)

- One adult: renter-track monthly margin -$2,463 (national)
- Two adults: renter-track monthly margin -$1,949 (national)
- Median household: renter-track monthly margin -$947 (national)
- Senior 65+: renter-track monthly margin -$516 (national)
- Senior couple 65+: renter-track monthly margin +$1,934 (national)
- Social Security: renter-track monthly margin -$2,925 (national)
- Two Social Security: renter-track monthly margin -$2,867 (national)

## Core pages

- [Homepage](https://www.truecola.org/): national summary of the current month
- [Monthly Report](https://www.truecola.org/monthly/report.html): the full interactive monthly report
- [All districts](https://www.truecola.org/districts/): index of every congressional district
- District pages: one permanent URL per district, in the form https://www.truecola.org/districts/TX-7/
- Example districts: https://www.truecola.org/districts/CA-12/ · https://www.truecola.org/districts/TX-7/ · https://www.truecola.org/districts/NY-14/
- [Methodology](https://www.truecola.org/methodology/): how every number is computed
- [Corrections](https://www.truecola.org/corrections/): the public corrections log
- [About](https://www.truecola.org/about/): who we are and why we publish
- [Contact](https://www.truecola.org/contact/)
- [Terms](https://www.truecola.org/terms/)
- [Privacy Policy](https://www.truecola.org/privacy/)

## Machine-readable data

- [Current report dataset (JSON)](https://www.truecola.org/monthly/report-data.json): complete current-month numbers for every district and income group
- [Field glossary for agents](https://www.truecola.org/llms-full.txt): group codes, margin tracks, and JSON shape
- [Sitemap](https://www.truecola.org/sitemap.xml)
- [RSS feed](https://www.truecola.org/feed.xml): one entry per monthly report
- [Robots](https://www.truecola.org/robots.txt)

## Citation

Attribute "True Cost Of Living Analysis Project (truecola.org)" and link to the page or report you used. Do not invent figures; use only values from the published report or the JSON dataset.

## AI training and open model use

TrueCOLA **welcomes** use of the public dataset for model training, fine-tuning, evaluation, and RAG by open labs, commercial labs, and researchers.

- Policy file: [https://www.truecola.org/ai.txt](https://www.truecola.org/ai.txt)
- Dataset card: [https://www.truecola.org/data/README.md](https://www.truecola.org/data/README.md)
- Frictionless datapackage: [https://www.truecola.org/data/datapackage.json](https://www.truecola.org/data/datapackage.json)
- JSONL (all geos): [https://www.truecola.org/data/all.jsonl](https://www.truecola.org/data/all.jsonl)
- JSONL (districts only): [https://www.truecola.org/data/districts.jsonl](https://www.truecola.org/data/districts.jsonl)
- Plain-text corpus: [https://www.truecola.org/data/corpus.txt](https://www.truecola.org/data/corpus.txt)
- Canonical nested JSON: [https://www.truecola.org/monthly/report-data.json](https://www.truecola.org/monthly/report-data.json)

**Requirement:** attribute True Cost Of Living Analysis Project (truecola.org). Prefer the JSON/JSONL files over scraping HTML.

## CPI vs dollars (education)

- [CPI in dollars](https://www.truecola.org/cpi/): why TrueCOLA translates cost-of-living source data into monthly household margins instead of leading with a percentage. The CPI is not replaced; the public product is a dollar lens for seven household types and 435 districts.