What it costs to live in Massachusetts
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
8.24%
above average
Housing
30.13%
ranks 5 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$108
costs this here
Price rank
6
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in Massachusetts
- Massachusetts is one of the more expensive places to buy things, ranking 6 nationally on price. Prices sit about 8.24% above the national average. The same hundred dollars of shopping costs $108. 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.
- Massachusetts is expensive in one specific way. Overall prices are about 8.24% above average. Housing is about 30.13% above it. Everything that is not rent — food, clothes, a coffee — sits much nearer the national norm than people expect. If you already own a home here, the state is far cheaper than its reputation.
- Put a wage against it. Seventy-five thousand dollars of salary, spent at Massachusetts prices, stretches as far as $69,292 would at national-average prices. That is before any tax. It is purely what the local cost of things does to what you earn.
- Overall prices in Massachusetts run about 8.24% above the national level, which places it 6 for cost of living nationally. A one-hundred-dollar national-average basket costs $108 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.
- The gap between Massachusetts's housing component and its all-items index is about 21.89%, with housing about 30.13% above the national level against an overall about 8.24%, ranking 5 for shelter costs. Goods parities cluster tightly nationally because tradeable items move; shelter does not, and so it carries nearly all the dispersion. The distributional consequence is that the burden falls on renters and recent buyers rather than on established owners, which an all-items comparison cannot show.
- A seventy-five thousand dollar salary deflated by Massachusetts's price parity is equivalent to $69,292 of national-average purchasing power. ⚠️ No tax is included: this isolates the price level from the tax system entirely, and both act on the same income. Note also that the index says nothing about local nominal wages, so it should not be read on its own as evidence that a household is better or worse off here.
What the money buys here
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home, actual dollars | $58,163 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 108.238 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 130.13 |
| Cheapest place to live | 46th 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 Massachusetts | $58,163 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$9,647 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing130.13
- Goods102.413
- Services104.698
| Housing | 130.13 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 102.413 |
| Services | 104.698 |
| All items | 108.238 |
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 | 47th of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| Massachusetts on take-home | 42nd |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 47th |
| Places moved | 5 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
Massachusetts against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | Massachusetts | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,163 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $53,736 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 22.45% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 6.25% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | Yes | No |
| Property tax rate | 1.07% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 108.2 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 130.1 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 24¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $3.51 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Massachusetts, 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 | $70,124 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$12,725 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 108 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares Massachusetts 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 | 30.13% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | 2.41% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | 4.7% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | 8.24% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at Massachusetts prices, buys what $69,292 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 Massachusetts, 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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts.
- 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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts to another jurisdiction requires both figures, not either alone.
Questions people ask
Does a higher salary here actually leave me better off?
Only if it rises by more than prices do. Here a hundred dollars covers $108 of what it would buy at the national average, so nominal pay overstates what you can actually do with it.
Is this number a percentage?
Not a percentage — an index against a national average pinned at one hundred. The gap is in index points, which is a comparison rather than a rate on anything.
Which part of living here is actually different?
Almost entirely housing. The goods component sits close to the national average here, so the gap you feel is rent and property rather than the supermarket.
Is this one of the extremes?
6 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?
Convert both offers to the same terms first. Adjusted for prices, a reference salary behaves like $69,292 in Massachusetts; income tax then moves it again, independently.
How does an above-average price level affect real income?
Massachusetts's all-items regional price parity exceeds the national average, so nominal income overstates purchasing power. One hundred dollars of expenditure purchases $108 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 Massachusetts'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 6 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 $69,292 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.