A claim circulated widely on social media this week: Miami has become more expensive than New York City. The headline traces back to Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data showing Miami’s cost of living above New York’s for the first time.

But the word “expensive” needs context. A cost-of-living measure is not a simple comparison of sticker prices. It measures local prices relative to what residents earn. The BEA finding does not mean a Miami apartment costs more than a comparable apartment in Manhattan. In May 2026, Manhattan’s median listing price per square foot was $1,489, more than three times Miami-Dade County’s $465, according to data retrieved through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The shift is that Miami’s prices have risen more sharply relative to average local earnings than New York’s prices have risen relative to New Yorkers’ earnings. Both cities remain highly expensive.

That distinction helps explain why the comparison can obscure how residents actually live in each market. Cost-of-living indexes include categories that may barely affect a Manhattan renter but can weigh heavily on Miami households. Car ownership is one of the biggest differences, along with rising insurance premiums, private school tuition and restaurant costs that have increased in the area over the past year. South Florida’s consumer price index has climbed 36% since 2019, more than any government-tracked metro area except Tampa. Those costs are separate from the price of Manhattan real estate, and they matter because affordability is shaped by recurring household expenses as much as by headline housing prices.

The issue is affordability

Michelle Griffith, a broker at Douglas Elliman, said she has been receiving questions about the report since it was published. In her view, the central issue is affordability.

“Affordability now in Miami, especially—and listen, I feel really badly for the people who were living in Miami [before this influx of new residents], and now all of a sudden the restaurant costs are going up, the transportation costs are going up, insurance costs are going up, rent is going up, tuition to send your kids to school is going up.”

Griffith said those pressures are a real problem for Miami residents. But she added that the data does not show Miami has caught up to New York on the measures that typically drive real estate pricing.

“When we really break down the numbers, the jobs are based in New York City,” Griffith said.

New York City’s metro area added 86,800 jobs over the year through December 2025, more than double Miami’s total and more than the combined job gains in Dallas, Philadelphia and Atlanta, according to the NYCEDC’s monthly economic snapshot. Miami’s metro area added 42,600 jobs over the same 12-month period, according to BLS regional employment data, less than half of New York’s total, even though Miami posted the faster percentage growth rate of the two metros.

Those growth rates look different when measured against the size of each region. With nearly 20 million residents, the New York metro area can add 86,800 jobs and still record a modest growth rate of less than 1%. Miami’s smaller region, with 6.4 million people, needs only about half as many new positions to generate a growth rate roughly 50% higher. At the same time, because the New York metro area has about three times as many residents as Miami, Miami is creating jobs at a faster rate on a per-resident basis: about 6.7 new jobs per 1,000 residents, compared with roughly 4.4 per 1,000 in New York.

Griffith said the comparison between Miami and Manhattan also depends on which areas are being measured.

“As much as people like to put Miami up against Manhattan, if you look at prime locations and compare that to prime locations in Miami, we are still significantly higher on a price per square foot,” she said.

She noted that the underlying data compared a broad section of South Florida with greater New York City. Even Fisher Island, Miami’s most expensive enclave, recorded a Q1 2026 price per square foot of $2,391. That was below Manhattan’s overall condo average of $2,431 per square foot, according to Miller Samuel, a New York City-based real estate appraisal and consulting firm. Comparing prime Miami with prime Manhattan, Griffith said, “it’s not even a contest.”

“That article was really talking about affordability,” she said. “Whereas if you take New York City, our barriers to entry are very high, right? Our price points are very high. Our average rent has always been high.”

Miami built much of its appeal on the idea that money went further there. As a result, a rising cost of living represents a meaningful change for the city, while similar costs in New York may appear less dramatic because they were already elevated. “Now they’re having affordability issues, and I think that’s really making people think twice about leaving New York,” Griffith said. “I found those headlines as a very pro-New-York-City stance.”

New York remains a business center

Griffith also said she does not see the idea that jobs are simply following residents south as accurate anymore, particularly as return-to-office mandates gradually reduce the prevalence of fully remote work.

“The jobs and the opportunities are still centered in New York, and Manhattan still offers better long-term real estate fundamentals,” she said. “The world’s wealth and businesses continue to converge in Manhattan. If you want to be in tech, you’re in San Francisco. But finance, fintech, entertainment? There are so many types of businesses that all converge in Manhattan, which gives reason for businesses to be here and people to live here.”

Asked about companies opening satellite offices in cities such as Miami, Griffith did not reject the trend, but she said she does not view it as a withdrawal from New York. She cited J.P. Morgan as a clear example. The bank has doubled its Miami office and built out a Florida workforce that now totals roughly 16,400 employees. In New York, however, J.P. Morgan employs more than 20,000 people, its largest single hub, and recently opened a $3 billion, 2.5-million-square-foot headquarters designed to accommodate 14,000 workers.

“These companies aren’t leaving New York,” Griffith said. “They’re adding Florida. New York is still the anchor.” She added: “There are still so many people in finance which are here because this is the mecca for finance.”

In Griffith’s experience, the divide between the two cities often has more to do with life stage than price. “If you’re younger and you need a job, you’re coming to New York,” she said, citing the city’s employment base and a school system she says has no true substitute. She said she sees more movement south once clients retire, but even then, it is often not a complete departure from New York.

“That doesn’t always mean that they’re selling their place in New York,” she said. “It just means that they’re also picking up another property in South Florida to have a slower lifestyle.”

Some clients divide their time by season. Griffith pointed to clients who still spend summers in the Hamptons because Florida heat during that period, in her words, “is miserable.”

She also cited Tribeca’s recovery after September 11, when predictions that the neighborhood was finished were followed within months by a rebound that helped make 10013 one of the highest-priced zip codes in the country for two consecutive decades. During the week of July 13 to 19, Manhattan recorded 27 contracts signed at $4 million and above, according to the Olshan Luxury Market Report, only two fewer than the prior week.

“This is probably going to be one of my biggest years, and I’ve been doing this over 15 years,” Griffith said.

Whatever costs Miami has gained, Griffith said, it has not gained what New York already had. “You cannot replicate the lifestyle in Manhattan.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.