What it costs to live in Pennsylvania
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
-2.5%
below average
Housing
-14.21%
ranks 26 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$98
costs this here
Price rank
21
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania is cheaper than the country as a whole, ranking 21 nationally on price. Prices sit about 2.5% below average, so a hundred dollars of shopping costs $98. Small on any one purchase. Considerable across a year of them.
- Pennsylvania is cheap where it counts most. Overall prices are about 2.5% from average. Housing is about 14.21% from it, which is a far bigger gap. Groceries and gas cost roughly what they cost elsewhere. Rent does not, and rent is the bill that repeats every month without fail.
- What does that do to a salary? Seventy-five thousand dollars, earned and spent in Pennsylvania, goes as far as $76,923 would at average American prices. Tax is a separate subject and comes out on top of this.
- Prices in Pennsylvania run about 2.5% below the national level, placing it 21 nationally. The one-hundred-dollar national-average basket costs $98 in-state. The parity is a fixed-basket price comparison, so the gap represents genuine purchasing power rather than a difference in what residents choose to buy.
- Shelter in Pennsylvania carries a parity about 14.21% beneath the national level while the all-items index sits about 2.5% from it — a spread of about 11.71%, ranking 26 for housing costs. Since housing typically represents the largest single line in a household budget, a state whose cheapness is concentrated there delivers more real income than its all-items parity implies, particularly for households early in their tenure.
- Adjusting seventy-five thousand dollars for Pennsylvania's all-items parity yields $76,923 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 | $59,290 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 97.5 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 85.787 |
| Cheapest place to live | 31st 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 Pennsylvania | $59,290 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$2,573 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing85.787
- Goods99.243
- Services99.138
| Housing | 85.787 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 99.243 |
| Services | 99.138 |
| All items | 97.5 |
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 | 26th of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| Pennsylvania on take-home | 16th |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 28th |
| Places moved | 12 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
Pennsylvania against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | Pennsylvania | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $59,290 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $60,810 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 20.95% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 6% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | Yes | No |
| Property tax rate | 1.3% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 97.5 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 85.8 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 57.6¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $2.60 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Pennsylvania, 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 | $71,727 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$3,554 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 98 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares Pennsylvania 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 | -14.21% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | -0.76% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | -0.86% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | -2.5% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at Pennsylvania prices, buys what $76,923 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 Pennsylvania, 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 Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania.
- 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 Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania to another jurisdiction requires both figures, not either alone.
Questions people ask
What does a lower cost of living actually get me?
Room that a bigger salary elsewhere might not buy. A hundred dollars here does the work of $98 at national prices.
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.
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 $76,923 in Pennsylvania; income tax then moves it again, independently.
How does a below-average price level translate into real income?
Pennsylvania's all-items parity is at or below the national average, so nominal income understates purchasing power: one hundred dollars purchases $98 of national-average consumption. ⚠️ Parity measures prices, not availability or quality, and does not capture differences in the composition of what is bought.
Which component drives this state's parity?
The housing parity dominates Pennsylvania'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.
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 $76,923 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.