What it costs to live in Alaska
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
1.71%
above average
Housing
-3.36%
ranks 21 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$102
costs this here
Price rank
13
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in Alaska
- Everyday things cost more in Alaska. Not a little more — about 1.71% more than the national average, across ordinary shopping. Put it another way. A hundred dollars of typical American spending runs to $102 here. Ranked against every other state for price, Alaska comes in at 13. That gap is why a salary that sounded generous somewhere else can feel ordinary once you arrive.
- Look at what is actually cheap in Alaska. It is not the shopping — that runs about 1.71% from the national average, which is not far. It is housing, at about 3.36% from average. The biggest bill most households pay is the one this state discounts.
- What does that do to a salary? Seventy-five thousand dollars, earned and spent in Alaska, goes as far as $73,735 would at average American prices. Tax is a separate subject and comes out on top of this.
- Alaska carries an all-items regional price parity of about 1.71% above the national level, ranking 13 nationally for overall price level. Restated as money, a basket costing one hundred dollars at national average prices costs $102 here. Price parities are published by BEA as index values against a national base of one hundred and describe the price of a fixed basket, not the size of anyone's budget — a high-parity state is expensive to buy in, which is a distinct question from whether its residents are worse off.
- Decomposition puts Alaska's housing parity about 3.36% below national against an overall about 1.71%, a divergence of about 5.07% and a shelter rank of 21. Non-tradeable goods absorb local conditions that tradeable ones cannot, which is why shelter drives nearly all interstate variation in measured price level. Any relocation model built on the all-items figure alone will therefore understate the gain here.
- Adjusting seventy-five thousand dollars for Alaska's all-items parity yields $73,735 in constant national purchasing power. ⚠️ The figure is pre-tax and price-only; income, sales and local taxes are additional and independent of the parity. Nominal wage levels also correlate with parities in practice, so a full comparison of two states requires the local salary for the same role alongside this adjustment.
What the money buys here
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home, actual dollars | $61,593 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 101.715 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 96.643 |
| Cheapest place to live | 39th of 51 |
Housing is where places differ most. Everything else moves far less than people expect.
Price parities are an index where the US average is 100 — a comparison between places, not a price.
The same pay, somewhere else
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home in Alaska | $61,593 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,829 |
The raise and the real gain point in opposite directions here.
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing96.643
- Goods100.372
- Services103.313
| Housing | 96.643 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 100.372 |
| Services | 103.313 |
| All items | 101.715 |
An index where 100 is the national average. Housing moves far more than anything else.
Housing, against the country
A $75,000 salary
| Cheapest housing | MS · 55 |
|---|---|
| Dearest housing | DC · 169 |
| This state, cheapest first | 31st of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| Alaska on take-home | 6th |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 30th |
| Places moved | 24 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
Alaska against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | Alaska | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $61,593 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $60,554 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 17.88% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 0% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 1.11% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 101.7 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 96.6 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 8¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $2.00 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Alaska, Statewide average; Texas, Harris County (Houston). Clothing: one $100 item; higher prices can change tax.
What you would need there
A $75,000 salary
| To match take-home only | $75,000 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,908 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 102 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares Alaska with the national average for that kind of spending. The overall figure is the three above it, weighted the way a typical household spends — which is why housing can pull it a long way on its own.
| What you spend on | Against national average | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | -3.36% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | 0.37% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | 3.31% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | 1.71% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at Alaska prices, buys what $73,735 would buy at national average prices. That is a price adjustment only. No tax of any kind has been taken off it, and tax is a separate bill on the same money.
What this page cannot tell you
- This is one number for the whole of Alaska, and no state is one place. A big city and a rural county can sit far apart on every figure here.
- These prices were measured in 2023. Rents in particular can move a long way in a couple of years.
- And this is prices only. It says nothing about what Alaska charges you in tax, which is a separate bill and is covered elsewhere on this site.
- These parities are state-level aggregates. BEA also publishes metropolitan-area parities, and within-state dispersion between a large metro and a rural area routinely exceeds the difference between two states — so a state figure should not be read as descriptive of any particular address in Alaska.
- The underlying survey vintage is 2023, which is the most recent BEA publication rather than a current reading. Shelter parities are the component most exposed to drift between vintages, so recent local rent movements in Alaska will not be reflected here.
- Price parity and tax burden are independent quantities and this page models only the first. A low-parity state with high income tax and a high-parity state with none can leave a household in the same real position; comparing Alaska to another jurisdiction requires both figures, not either alone.
Questions people ask
Does a higher salary here actually leave me better off?
The two move together and have to be compared together. Every hundred dollars spent in Alaska does the work of $102 nationally, so a raise that matches the gap leaves you where you started.
Is it just housing that is different here?
Not only. In most states housing does nearly all the work, but Alaska is less lopsided than that — goods and services sit closer to the housing figure, so the difference shows up across ordinary spending rather than concentrating in rent.
Does the overall figure tell me what housing costs here?
The headline understates it. Overall rank is 13 of 51; housing alone ranks 21, and housing is the part a mover feels first.
How does an above-average price level affect real income?
Alaska's all-items regional price parity exceeds the national average, so nominal income overstates purchasing power. One hundred dollars of expenditure purchases $102 of national-average consumption. Real income comparisons across states require deflating by parity; nominal comparisons systematically favor high-price states.
How do this state's components decompose?
Alaska's components are less dispersed than the national pattern, in which housing typically dominates. Goods and other-services parities sit nearer the housing parity, so the all-items figure reflects broad-based rather than shelter-concentrated divergence.
Why does this state's housing rank diverge from its all-items rank?
Alaska ranks 13 of 51 on all items but 21 on the housing component. Because the all-items index weights housing at its national expenditure share rather than at the household's own, the headline figure understates housing divergence for renters and recent buyers, whose shelter share exceeds the national average.