What it costs to live in California
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
12.58%
above average
Housing
57.84%
ranks 2 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$113
costs this here
Price rank
1
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in California
- California is one of the more expensive places to buy things, ranking 1 nationally on price. Prices sit about 12.58% above the national average. The same hundred dollars of shopping costs $113. It does not sound like much written down, and then it applies to almost everything you buy, every week, for as long as you live there.
- Housing is the whole story in California. The state's prices overall are about 12.58% from average, and its housing is about 57.84% from it. Strip rent out and California looks like an ordinary American state. Leave it in and it does not.
- What does that do to a salary? Seventy-five thousand dollars, earned and spent in California, goes as far as $66,619 would at average American prices. Tax is a separate subject and comes out on top of this.
- Overall prices in California run about 12.58% above the national level, which places it 1 for cost of living nationally. A one-hundred-dollar national-average basket costs $113 in-state. The index covers goods, rents and services weighted to national consumption patterns, so it is a like-for-like price comparison rather than a measure of what residents actually choose to spend.
- Decomposing California's price level separates a housing component about 57.84% above national from an all-items figure of about 12.58%, a divergence of about 45.26% and a shelter rank of 2. Because shelter is non-tradable, it absorbs local supply constraints that goods prices never register. A household's exposure therefore depends almost entirely on its housing tenure rather than on the state it lives in.
- Adjusting seventy-five thousand dollars for California's all-items parity yields $66,619 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 | $58,665 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 112.581 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 157.839 |
| Cheapest place to live | 51st 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 California | $58,665 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$11,274 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing157.839
- Goods107.53
- Services104.826
| Housing | 157.839 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 107.53 |
| Services | 104.826 |
| All items | 112.581 |
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 | 50th of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| California on take-home | 32nd |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 51st |
| Places moved | 19 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
California against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | California | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,665 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $52,109 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.78% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 7.25% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.7% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 112.6 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 157.8 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 63.4¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $2.87 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: California, Los Angeles County; 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 | $70,839 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$14,693 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 113 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares California 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 | 57.84% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | 7.53% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | 4.83% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | 12.58% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at California prices, buys what $66,619 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 California, 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 California 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 California.
- 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 California 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 California to another jurisdiction requires both figures, not either alone.
Questions people ask
Does a higher salary here actually leave me better off?
Not automatically. Prices in California run above the national level, so the same money buys less — $113 of national-average goods for every hundred dollars you spend. A larger salary in a dearer place can leave you with less than a smaller one somewhere cheap.
Is this number a percentage?
No — it is an index, with the national average fixed at one hundred. A state at one hundred and eight is eight index points above the average, not eight percent more expensive than any particular thing. Reading it as a percentage is the mistake that makes these figures sound more precise than they are.
Which part of living here is actually different?
Housing, and by a long way. Goods cost broadly the same everywhere — a television is a television — but rent and house prices swing far wider than anything else, so the housing component is what pushes California away from the national average rather than the shopping.
Is this one of the extremes?
It sits at 1 of 51, close to an extreme. The tails of this distribution are stretched, so differences involving them overstate what an ordinary relocation looks like.
How should I compare a job offer here with one somewhere else?
Two adjustments, not one. Prices bring a reference salary to $66,619 here, and state income tax changes the figure separately.
How does an above-average price level affect real income?
California's all-items regional price parity exceeds the national average, so nominal income overstates purchasing power. One hundred dollars of expenditure purchases $113 of national-average consumption. Real income comparisons across states require deflating by parity; nominal comparisons systematically favor high-price states.
How should a regional price parity be interpreted?
Regional price parities are index numbers with the national average normalized to one hundred. Differences are expressed in index points and are comparative rather than proportional to any specific price. They are estimated from a fixed national consumption basket, so they do not reflect state-specific spending patterns.
Which component drives this state's parity?
The housing parity dominates California's all-items figure, diverging from the national average by more than twice the goods component. Tradeable goods arbitrage across state lines and therefore cluster near parity; housing is non-tradeable, so its parity spans a far wider range and drives most interstate variation in the headline index.
Where does this state sit in the national ordering?
This state ranks 1 of 51, within the tails of the distribution. Parity dispersion is greater at the extremes than around the median, so comparisons anchored on a tail state overstate typical interstate differences.
How should nominal offers be adjusted across states?
Nominal offers should be deflated by the destination parity before comparison; the reference salary is equivalent to $66,619 in national-average terms here. ⚠️ Price adjustment and tax adjustment are independent and must both be applied — a state may be simultaneously cheap and heavily taxed, or the reverse.