A lot of "cost of living calculators" are just multiplying your salary by a regional price index. That gets you in the right neighborhood, but it ignores two important things:
- Housing dominates the difference. Average national CPI weights housing at about 33%, but the spread in housing costs across US metros is enormous. If you're moving from Cleveland to San Diego, housing is 80% of the gap.
- Household composition matters. A single 27-year-old renting a studio is exposed to housing costs differently than a family of four buying a 4-bedroom.
So our salary translator combines two BEA inputs — Regional Price Parities (state and metro level) and median home values — and applies a household-weighted housing multiplier on top of the base RPP ratio.
We then show you what your specific role typically pays in the target geo, drawn from BLS OEWS state-level wages. The "market gap" line tells you whether the local job market actually supports the equivalent salary you'd need.
If the local market median is below the equivalent salary you'd need, that's a real number — it means many people in your role earn less than what would maintain your purchasing power. Not a dealbreaker, but worth knowing.
We don't currently model commute, marginal income tax brackets, or sales tax effects in the salary translator headline. Those show up in the broader cost-of-living and tax categories.