Cost of Living Comparison Calculator

This calculator scales your current salary by the ratio of the new city's cost-of-living index to your current one, giving you the "equivalent salary" needed to preserve the same purchasing power — the standard method behind most cost-of-living tools, where 100 represents the national average. Purchasing power change expresses that same ratio as a percentage: a negative number means your current salary buys less in the new city even before you get a raise. Where this calculator goes further than a single blended index is in treating housing and food differently from the overall number. Housing costs are modeled as more volatile than the general index — any change in the overall index is amplified by a 1.3x multiplier before being applied to your housing budget share — because rent and home prices typically swing harder than the broader basket of goods when comparing, say, a Midwest city to a coastal one.

Food costs get a smaller 1.1x amplification, reflecting that groceries and dining track the general index more closely than housing does. Both category differences are calculated against a monthly slice of your salary sized by the budget-weight percentages you provide (30% housing, 15% food by default, matching typical national spending patterns). Keep in mind cost-of-living indices themselves are estimates that vary by source (Numbeo, BestPlaces, C2ER) and don't capture your specific lifestyle — a renter with no car will experience a very different cost delta than a homeowner with two cars, regardless of what the index says.