NP Hiring

Free Tool

City vs city, in real terms

A $15,000 raise that comes with a 30% jump in living costs is a pay cut. Put two cities side by side and see posted NP pay, the cost-of-living gap, and what each salary is actually worth, plus the number the second city would have to hit to break even.

Built from 183 published postings with disclosed pay across 9 states.

135 cities available. Where a city has at least three of its own salaried postings we use them; otherwise the state median stands in, and each column says which.

The bigger salary is the smaller paycheck

$63,874 real-terms difference (+52%)

Posted pay differs by $67,500 in San Francisco’s favor. Once the cost-of-living gap is applied, El Paso comes out ahead.

To match San Francisco purchasing power, a El Paso offer would need to pay $103,846.

San Francisco

California

Posted salary

$225,000

Worth in national-average dollars

$123,626
Cost-of-living index182
vs national average+82%
Pay basisCalifornia median (18 postings with pay)

El Paso

Texas

Posted salary

$157,500

Worth in national-average dollars

$187,500
Cost-of-living index84
vs national average-16%
Pay basisTexas median (7 postings with pay)

How this comparison is built

Two numbers drive everything on this page: what postings in each city actually pay, and how far a dollar goes there. Here is where each comes from.

What it assumes

  • Nominal pay is the true median midpoint of published NP-eligible postings on this board that disclose a salary range. Postings whose pay was inferred rather than posted by the employer are excluded.
  • A city uses its own postings when it has at least 5 of them with disclosed pay from 3+ employers; otherwise the state median stands in. Each column states which basis it used and the sample size behind it.
  • The cost-of-living index comes from this site’s city dataset, where 100 is the national average. It covers living costs (housing, groceries, utilities, transport, and healthcare), not taxes.
  • The adjusted figure is nominal pay multiplied by (100 ÷ the city’s index), the same formula used for cost-of-living adjusted pay across the rest of this site.
  • The picker carries the largest cities in each state, plus every city with enough postings to publish a gated median of its own.

What it does not include

  • Income tax of any kind. The index measures living costs, not what a state or city withholds; a no-income-tax state will do better than this comparison implies.
  • Your own housing situation. Cost-of-living indices assume an average household; if you own outright, rent below market, or commute in from outside the metro, your real gap will differ.
  • Employer benefits, shift differentials, and bonuses. Only the posted base range feeds these figures.

Sources

Questions about relocating

How is a cost-of-living adjusted salary calculated?
Divide the national-average index (100) by the city's index and multiply the salary by the result. A $140,000 salary in a city indexed at 140 is worth $100,000 in national-average dollars; the same salary in a city indexed at 90 is worth about $155,600. This comparator uses exactly the formula the rest of this site uses for cost-of-living adjusted pay. It is stricter about its inputs, though: this tool counts only postings where the employer disclosed a pay range, while our city and state pages also include listings whose pay we inferred. So for a city carrying inferred-pay listings, the nominal figure here can differ from the one on its own city page even though the adjustment is identical.
Where does the salary data come from?
Live postings on this board. Where a city has at least 5 published listings with disclosed, non-estimated pay from 3+ employers, we use the true median of those postings' midpoints; below that threshold the state median stands in, and each column tells you which basis it used and how many postings sit behind it. Listings whose pay was inferred rather than posted are excluded entirely.
Does a higher salary in an expensive city still come out ahead?
Often not, and that is the point of the tool. Pay differences between metros are frequently smaller than the cost-of-living gap between them, so the larger nominal offer can buy less. When that happens here, the headline says so directly and shows what the second city would have to pay to match.
Does this include state income tax?
No. The cost-of-living index covers living costs (housing, groceries, utilities, transport, and healthcare), not income tax. A state with no income tax can improve your real position beyond what this comparison shows, and a high-tax state can erode it. Treat the result as a living-costs comparison and layer tax on separately.
Can I use this to negotiate a relocation offer?
That is the strongest use of it. The "to match purchasing power" figure gives you a specific number to bring to the conversation: this is what the new city has to pay for the move to be financially neutral. Pair it with the state pay pages linked from each column for a second reference point.

Keep going

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