What it costs to live in Hawaii
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
8.61%
above average
Housing
28.89%
ranks 6 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$109
costs this here
Price rank
4
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in Hawaii
- Prices in Hawaii run above the national average — about 8.61% above it, which puts the state at 4 nationally for cost. Shopping that would cost a hundred dollars elsewhere costs $109 here. Whether that matters depends entirely on what you earn, which is the part these comparisons usually skip.
- Housing is the whole story in Hawaii. The state's prices overall are about 8.61% from average, and its housing is about 28.89% from it. Strip rent out and Hawaii 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 Hawaii, goes as far as $69,055 would at average American prices. Tax is a separate subject and comes out on top of this.
- Hawaii's price level stands about 8.61% above the national average, ranking it 4 among all jurisdictions. The equivalent of a one-hundred-dollar national basket costs $109. Because the parity holds the basket fixed, it isolates price from consumption behavior — two states with identical parities can still differ substantially in what households spend, and in what they earn.
- Decomposing Hawaii's price level separates a housing component about 28.89% above national from an all-items figure of about 8.61%, a divergence of about 20.28% and a shelter rank of 6. 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 Hawaii's all-items parity yields $69,055 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 | $57,336 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 108.609 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 128.89 |
| Cheapest place to live | 48th 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 Hawaii | $57,336 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$10,592 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing128.89
- Goods106.907
- Services101.857
| Housing | 128.89 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 106.907 |
| Services | 101.857 |
| All items | 108.609 |
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 | 46th of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| Hawaii on take-home | 50th |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 49th |
| Places moved | 1 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
Hawaii against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | Hawaii | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $57,336 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $52,791 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 23.55% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 4% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | No | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 0.27% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 108.6 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 128.9 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 16¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $3.60 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Hawaii, 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 | $68,949 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$13,868 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 109 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares Hawaii 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 | 28.89% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | 6.91% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | 1.86% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | 8.61% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at Hawaii prices, buys what $69,055 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 Hawaii, 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 Hawaii 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 Hawaii.
- 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 Hawaii 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 Hawaii 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 Hawaii does the work of $109 nationally, so a raise that matches the gap leaves you where you started.
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 Hawaii away from the national average rather than the shopping.
Is this one of the extremes?
4 of 51 puts it near an end. The distribution is wider at the edges than in the middle.
How should I compare a job offer here with one somewhere else?
Two adjustments, not one. Prices bring a reference salary to $69,055 here, and state income tax changes the figure separately.
How does an above-average price level affect real income?
Hawaii's all-items regional price parity exceeds the national average, so nominal income overstates purchasing power. One hundred dollars of expenditure purchases $109 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 Hawaii'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 4 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 $69,055 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.