Cost of Living Comparison Calculator
↻ Updated 2026Moving cities? See how much you'd need to earn in a new city to maintain your current standard of living, based on relative cost-of-living indices.
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Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent to us.How this works
How to read your equivalent salary
The equivalent salary is a ratio, not a budget: it's what the index says you'd need in the new city to buy what your money buys today. $90,000 in Austin comes out at $163,398 in New York — an 82% raise just to stand still, which is the single most useful sanity check you can run on an out-of-state offer.
How the equivalent salary between two cities is worked out
A single ratio. Each city carries a composite cost-of-living index anchored to a US average of 100, and your salary is scaled by the ratio of the two. Nothing else is in the model — not your rent, not your commute, not your tax.
The anchor is what makes the numbers readable. An index of 187 means costs run 87% above the national average; 88 means 12% below. Austin at 103 is a hair above average, which is why moving out of Austin makes almost everywhere look either dramatically dearer or mildly cheaper.
equivalent salary = current salary × (new city index ÷ current city index) cost difference % = (new city index − current city index) ÷ current city index × 100 raise needed = equivalent salary − current salary index anchor: US average = 100
- current salary
- What you earn today, gross, in your current city — the model scales this figure directly; it applies no tax of its own
- current city index
- Composite cost-of-living index where you live now — Austin is 103 — roughly the national average
- new city index
- Composite index where you're considering moving — New York 187, San Francisco 244, Cleveland 88 — housing-weighted composites, US average = 100
- equivalent salary
- What you'd need there to match your buying power here — gross, and before any difference in state or local income tax
- raise needed
- Equivalent salary minus current salary — the break-even ask — not a target, a floor
The ratio is symmetric, but the percentages are not, and this catches people out. Austin to New York is +82%; New York to Austin is −45%. Both are true: going up needs an 82% raise, coming down survives a 45% cut. The asymmetry is just what happens when a percentage changes its denominator — 187 is 82% above 103, and 103 is 45% below 187.
Because the model is a pure ratio, the salary you enter never affects the percentage — only the dollar figures scale. That's a limitation as much as a feature: the index assumes you spend like an average household at every income, and a $250,000 earner's budget is not a scaled-up version of a $60,000 earner's. High earners typically find real gaps narrower than the index says, because the housing share of their spending is smaller. The reverse holds lower down the scale. If you want the tax half of the same question, start with the take-home paycheck calculator and run both states.
Worked examples
Example: $90,000 in Austin, moving to New York
The calculator's defaults. Austin's composite index is 103; New York's is 187.
| Current salary in Austingross | $90,000 |
| Austin indexUS average = 100 | 103 |
| New York index87% above the national average | 187 |
| Index ratiothe multiplier | 187 ÷ 103 = 1.816 |
| Equivalent salary in New York$90,000 × 1.816 | $163,398 |
| Cost differenceNew York vs Austin | +82% |
| Raise needed to break evenbefore tax | +$73,398 |
$163,398 to stand still — and that's the break-even, not an improvement. It's also before tax: Texas has no state income tax and New York has both a state and a city one, so the real requirement is higher again. This is why a headline offer that looks like a large raise on paper can be a cut in practice, and why the number people should be negotiating against is this one rather than their current salary.
Example: the same $90,000 moving to Cleveland instead
Change the destination to Cleveland — index 88, twelve points below the national average and fifteen below Austin.
| Cleveland index12% below the US average | 88 |
| Index ratiobelow 1 — costs fall | 88 ÷ 103 = 0.854 |
| Equivalent salary in Cleveland$90,000 × 0.854 | $76,893 |
| Cost differenceCleveland vs Austin | −15% |
| Change vs current salarythe pay cut you could absorb | − $13,107 |
You could take a $13,107 pay cut in Cleveland and be no worse off. Set the destination to San Francisco instead — index 244 — and the same $90,000 needs to become $213,204, a 137% raise. The spread between those two answers, $76,893 and $213,204, is the widest fact on this page: the same job, the same person, the same year, and a factor of nearly three between what the country's cheapest and dearest metros demand of a salary.
Frequently asked questions
How much more do I need to earn to live in New York vs Austin?
On this calculator's indices — Austin 103, New York 187 — you'd need 82% more. A $90,000 Austin salary maps to $163,398 in New York, a $73,398 raise just to break even.
Treat that as the high end of a genuinely wide range. Published comparisons of these two cities land anywhere from about 30% to over 60% depending on whose index you read and which part of New York they mean — Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens differ from each other more than many cities do. What every source agrees on is direction and rough magnitude: this is not a move a 10% raise covers. And none of them include the state and city income tax you'd start paying on arrival from Texas.
What does a cost of living index of 100 mean?
100 is the US average. Everything is quoted relative to it, so an index of 187 means costs run 87% above the national average and 88 means 12% below. Austin's 103 says it costs about 3% more than the country as a whole.
The index is a composite, weighted heavily toward housing, which is both why it's useful and why it's blunt. Housing is the line that actually differs between metros — groceries, fuel and a haircut vary far less than rent does. So a high index is mostly a statement about the cost of a roof, and if your housing situation is unusual in either direction, the index is describing someone else's budget.
How accurate are cost of living calculators?
Directionally reliable, precisely not. Every index of this kind measures an average basket for an average household, and the further you are from average — no car, a paid-off house, kids in private school, a rent-stabilised apartment — the less it describes you.
Three specific weaknesses are worth knowing. Indices are metro-wide, so they average neighbourhoods whose rents differ by a factor of two or more. They lag, because the survey data behind them is collected and published on a delay. And they disagree with each other: two reputable sources can put the same city fifty points apart, which is why the Austin-to-New-York answer above ranges from 30% to 82% depending on whom you ask. Use them to size a decision, not to settle one.
Does the cost of living comparison include state income tax?
No — and for US moves that omission is often larger than anything the index captures. Standard cost-of-living indices measure the price of goods and services. Income tax isn't a good or a service, so it sits outside the basket entirely.
The Austin-to-New-York default is the worst case for this gap: Texas levies no state income tax, and New York charges both a state and a city one. So the true equivalent is above the $163,398 this page reports, and the same problem runs in reverse for anyone moving from California to Nevada, Washington or Florida, where the index understates how much better off they are. Run both salaries through the take-home paycheck calculator with each state's rate to see the part this tool can't.
What these cost-of-living indices don't capture
This is one ratio between two composite numbers. It's a useful first cut and a poor last word — here's precisely where it stops.
- The indices are indicative, and sources disagree sharply — The values here are composite, housing-weighted indices with no single publisher behind them. Published comparisons of the same city pair routinely differ by tens of points — this page puts New York 82% above Austin where several widely-used calculators say 30–50%. Any answer within that spread is defensible, which tells you how much precision to read into the dollar figure.
- No taxes of any kind — State income tax, local income tax, property tax and sales tax are all outside the model. Austin to New York understates the gap; California to Texas overstates how much you're giving up. For interstate moves this is frequently the biggest single number missing.
- A metro is not a neighbourhood — One index covers all of New York, from Manhattan to the far edge of Queens. Housing dominates the composite and housing is exactly what varies most within a metro, so the citywide figure can be wrong in both directions for the specific place you'd actually live.
- It assumes you spend like the average household — The weights are an average basket. If you don't own a car, or already own your home, or spend most of your income on things that price nationally rather than locally, the ratio is describing a budget that isn't yours. The distortion grows with income, because housing is a smaller share of a large salary.
- None of the reasons people actually move are in it — Commute time, childcare availability, career market depth, climate, family proximity. The index prices a basket of goods; it has nothing to say about whether the move is a good one, and a city that costs 82% more may be where the jobs that pay 82% more exist.
- ·Composite cost-of-living indices (relative, US avg = 100) — Indicative; varies by source
Rates, brackets and limits here are checked against primary sources. If a number still looks off, email support@realmoneyiq.com and we'll review and fix it.
RealMoneyIQ provides free educational calculators, not financial, tax, investment or legal advice. Results are estimates based on the assumptions you enter and publicly published rates; your actual outcome will differ. Always confirm decisions with a licensed professional who knows your full situation.