Cost of Living Calculator: Compare Cities & Salaries 2026
Cost of Living Calculator: What Your Salary Is Really Worth Somewhere Else
A raise that comes with a move isn't always a raise. Compare two cities below to see the salary you'd actually need to keep the same standard of living.
A $90,000 salary in Austin and a $90,000 salary in San Francisco aren't remotely the same offer — but the number on the offer letter looks identical either way. Cost of living differences are the reason a "raise" for taking a job in a bigger city can quietly leave you worse off, and why a smaller salary in a cheaper city can stretch further than people expect.
This calculator uses a cost of living index — a standardized score where 100 represents the national average — to convert your current salary into the equivalent you'd need elsewhere to maintain the same purchasing power.
Salary Equivalence Calculator
How the index actually works
The cost of living index used here follows the standard methodology: 100 represents the national average, scores above 100 mean a city is more expensive than average, and scores below 100 mean it's cheaper. The underlying calculation weighs six categories — housing (typically the largest factor, 30–40% of the total), groceries, utilities, transportation, healthcare, and miscellaneous goods and services.
Housing costs dominate the index for a simple reason: rent and home prices vary far more dramatically between cities than groceries or utilities do. A city with expensive housing but average grocery prices will still land well above 100 overall, because housing is weighted heavily enough to carry the score.
Real 2026 reference points
| Location | Index (100 = national average) |
|---|---|
| Hawaii (most expensive state) | 185 |
| California | 142 |
| Massachusetts | 141 |
| National average | 100 |
| West Virginia | 88 |
| Mississippi | 87 |
| Oklahoma (cheapest state) | 86 |
City-level figures in the calculator above are rounded general reference points compiled from commonly cited cost-of-living indexes. Exact scores shift slightly with each data release — use them for directional comparison, not to the decimal point.
Why housing drives almost the entire gap
Between the most and least expensive US states, the overall cost of living index can differ by 100 points or more — and the majority of that gap comes from housing alone. Groceries, utilities, and transportation vary too, but rarely by more than 20–30% between expensive and cheap markets. Rent and home prices, by contrast, can differ by 200–300% between a major coastal metro and a smaller Midwestern city. If you're evaluating a move, the housing line item deserves the most scrutiny — it's doing most of the work in whatever index score you're looking at.
What this calculator doesn't capture
- State and local income tax differences. A move from a no-income-tax state to a high-tax one changes your real take-home pay independently of the cost of living index.
- Personal spending habits. The index reflects average consumption patterns — if you don't drive, transportation cost differences matter less to you than the average.
- Career and salary growth potential. A lower-paying but lower-cost city might still be the better long-term financial move if it offers stronger career growth — the index is a snapshot, not a full decision framework.
Using this before a relocation or remote job offer
If a job offer includes a location-based salary adjustment, this calculator gives you a quick sanity check on whether the adjustment is fair. It's also worth running your numbers through a full net worth calculator before a major move — a lower cost of living can meaningfully accelerate savings even at a smaller salary, which matters more to your long-term financial position than the salary number alone.
Frequently asked questions
Not quite. A cost of living calculator compares purchasing power between locations. A salary calculator typically focuses on taxes and take-home pay within one location. For a full relocation decision, you generally need both.
Different data providers weight the six spending categories slightly differently and update on different schedules, so index scores for the same city can vary by a few points between sources. Treat any single score as an approximation, and look for consistency in the overall pattern rather than expecting exact agreement.
Standard cost of living indexes generally do not include income tax rates — they focus on everyday spending categories like housing, groceries, and transportation. State and local taxes need to be factored in separately.
Roughly, multiply your current salary by the ratio of the two cities' index scores. Moving from a 100-index city to a 150-index city, for example, means you'd need about 50% more salary to maintain the same standard of living — the calculator above runs this exact math for your specific numbers.
For official government data on regional price differences, see the Bureau of Economic Analysis's Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area.
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