Quality of life comparison
If you lived in New York instead of Costa Rica, you would:
Economy
be 35.7% less likely to be unemployed
In Costa Rica, 6.8% of the labor force is unemployed as of 2025. In New York, that number is 4.4% as of 2025.
be 22.2% less likely to live below the poverty line
In Costa Rica, 17.1% live below the poverty line as of 2025. In New York, however, that number is 13.3% as of 2023.
make 4.6 times more money
Costa Rica has a GDP per capita of $19,970 as of 2025, while in New York, the GDP per capita is $91,992 as of 2024.
Sources: World Bank (2025), Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025), US Census Bureau (American Community Survey) (2023), Bureau of Economic Analysis (2024). How we calculate this
