I live in North Carolina and hear about how cheap it is here and how I must being doing so well. The problem is they are looking at a state to state direct comparison. I live in Chapel Hill and it is pretty similar to Utah. If you look at the places here you would actually want to live it is crazy expensive too.

In Utah there is only so much livable land so everything is expensive. In North Carolina you could technically live in the entire state and if you look on zillow you will see nice stuff out in dying towns and cities that are riddled with crime, poverty, and illiteracy. That wouldn't be the best environment for kids or a family. So if you just compare State to State statistics without any nuance it looks like it would be cheap in North Carolina. The fact is There aren't jobs in rural NC and if you worked remote you wouldn't want to subject your family to a dying town with huge problems.