Cost of Living Calculator

About $85,560. Prices in California are 14.1% more expensive than in Texas, so keeping the same standard of living takes about $10,560 more a year. That is the whole calculation: your salary, multiplied by the destination's price level and divided by your current one.

Texas price level

97.1

California price level

110.7

Needed in California

$85,560

BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024, all items, US = 100.

The total hides a lopsided picture. By category, the gaps are utilities 81.6% more expensive, housing (rents) 59.9% more expensive, goods 8.2% more expensive, other services 5.7% more expensive. The widest gaps are in utilities and housing (rents). Goods, the part of the budget most people picture when they think about prices, are only 8.2% more expensive. If more of your money goes on rent and bills than the average household, the move costs you more than the overall figure says.

Pay moves too, which is the half of the picture most calculators leave out. The median wage across all occupations is $48,620 in Texas and $58,240 in California (BLS OEWS, May 2025). In Texas, $75,000 puts you ahead of about 73% of workers. In California, the equivalent $85,560 would put you ahead of about 67% of workers.

City to city, the answer can differ a lot from the state figures, because a state average blends its expensive metros with its cheaper rural counties. $75,000 in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX metro area buys about what $88,420 buys in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, a gap of $13,420 a year.

The category split explains it: utilities 110.4% more expensive, housing (rents) 61.8% more expensive, goods 15.7% more expensive, other services 10.4% more expensive. The four categories rarely move together, which is why the calculator shows each of them rather than a single score.

California is the most expensive state to live in at 110.7, and Arkansas the cheapest at 86.9. The spread between them means $75,000 in Arkansas buys what $95,520 buys in California. The last column restates a $75,000 salary at national-average prices in local dollars. Each state links to its average salary page.

Most expensive states

Least expensive states

Rank 1 is the most expensive of 51. BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024, US = 100.

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA tops the 387 metro areas at 115.6, and Monroe, LA is the least expensive at 83.6. Housing is where metros separate: rents in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA sit at 194.7, against 42.8 in Monroe, LA.

Most expensive metro areas

Least expensive metro areas

Rank 1 is the most expensive of 387. BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024, US = 100.

Sometimes, and the federal data lets you check. Divide each state's median wage by its price level and you get what the typical paycheck is worth at national-average prices. On that basis District of Columbia comes out on top: its median of $91,540 is worth about $83,290 once prices are taken into account. At the other end, Mississippi's median of $40,120 is worth about $46,140.

The lesson for a move is to compare both sides of the ledger. An expensive state is worth it when the pay rise for your work beats the price gap, and the calculator gives you the price gap. For your own occupation's pay in each state, run the salary percentile check or browse average salary by state.

Every figure here comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPPs). BEA prices the same basket of goods and services in every state and metro area, using the consumer price survey for goods and services and federal survey rents for housing, and expresses each place as a percentage of the national average. A price level of 110 means the basket costs 10 percent more than the US average.

The equivalent salary is your salary times the destination's all-items RPP, divided by your current one, rounded to the nearest $10. The four category indexes (goods, housing, utilities and other services) are shown alongside so you can see which part of the budget moves, but they are not summed into the total: BEA weights each one by its share of spending.

• It is a price level, not a tax calculator. RPPs leave out income, sales and property taxes, so the equivalent salary is a gross figure.
• It is one year. The figures are the 2024 all-items index, the latest BEA has published. Prices that moved since then are not in it.
• Housing means rents. The housing index is built from rents, so it tracks what a renter pays far better than a mortgage on a new purchase.
• It is an average basket. If you spend more of your budget on rent than most people, the real gap for you is larger than the total.
• Pay ranks are state level. The local wage comparison uses BLS OEWS May 2025 percentiles for all occupations, which exist for states and the US but not for metro areas in this dataset.