What it costs to live in Wisconsin
Price levels against the national average
Prices overall
-6.9%
below average
Housing
-21.72%
ranks 32 for shelter
A hundred dollars of shopping
$93
costs this here
Price rank
31
1 is the most expensive
What that actually means in Wisconsin
- Buying things in Wisconsin costs less than it does in most of the country, ranking 31 nationally. The gap is about 6.9%, which turns a hundred dollars of national-average shopping into $93. It is the quiet half of any decision about where to live.
- Housing is what makes Wisconsin affordable. Prices overall sit about 6.9% from the national average, but housing is about 21.72% from it — much further. The things you buy in a store here cost close to what they cost anywhere. It is the roof that is cheap, and the roof is most people's largest bill.
- Here is the same idea pointed at a wage. Take a salary of seventy-five thousand dollars. In Wisconsin, at local prices, it buys what $80,561 would buy at national-average prices. Nothing has been taxed yet in that figure — it is only what the prices around you do to the money before the government touches it.
- Wisconsin's overall price level sits about 6.9% beneath the national average, ranking 31 across all jurisdictions, and the national one-hundred-dollar basket costs $93. Since BEA weights the basket to national consumption patterns, this figure is comparable across states in a way that surveys of household spending are not.
- Wisconsin's housing component sits about 21.72% below the national level against an all-items figure of about 6.9%, a divergence of about 14.82% and a housing rank of 32 nationally. Goods parities vary little between states because tradeable items arbitrage; shelter cannot, so it carries most of the observed dispersion. The consequence is that this state's affordability advantage accrues disproportionately to renters and buyers rather than to consumers generally.
- Deflating a seventy-five thousand dollar nominal salary by Wisconsin's all-items parity gives $80,561 in national-average purchasing power. ⚠️ This is a price adjustment only and contains no tax of any kind; state income tax, sales tax and local levies apply on top and are modeled elsewhere on this site. The comparison is also silent on wages themselves — high-parity states frequently pay more in nominal terms, and whether that offsets the price level is an empirical question this index cannot answer.
What the money buys here
A $75,000 salary
| Take-home, actual dollars | $58,595 |
|---|---|
| Price level, all itemsUS average = 100 | 93.097 |
| HousingUS average = 100 | 78.278 |
| Cheapest place to live | 21st 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 Wisconsin | $58,595 |
|---|---|
| Take-home in Texas | $61,593 |
| Once local prices are leveledBEA price parity | +$444 |
State income tax and state price levels only. No city income tax, and no housing market.
What is expensive here
A $75,000 salary
- Housing78.278
- Goods93.601
- Services98.214
| Housing | 78.278 |
|---|---|
| Goods | 93.601 |
| Services | 98.214 |
| All items | 93.097 |
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 | 20th of 51 |
A BEA index where 100 is the national average, not a house price.
Where the ranking flips
A $75,000 salary
| Wisconsin on take-home | 34th |
|---|---|
| Once prices are leveled | 24th |
| Places moved | 10 |
Left is rank on take-home. Right is rank once local prices are leveled by BEA parities.
Wisconsin against Texas
A $75,000 salary
| Measure | Wisconsin | Texas |
|---|---|---|
| Take-home pay | $58,595 | $61,593 |
| Worth after local prices | $62,939 | $63,383 |
| Share of pay taxed | 21.87% | 17.88% |
| State sales tax | 5% | 6.25% |
| Groceries exempt here | Yes | Yes |
| Clothing exempt at $100 | No | No |
| Property tax rate | 1.42% | 1.49% |
| Price level | 93.1 | 97.2 |
| Housing prices | 78.3 | 97.4 |
| Fuel tax | 30.9¢ | 20¢ |
| Tobacco tax | $2.52 | $1.41 |
City income tax excluded. Sales-tax row: state-only. Exemptions: Wisconsin, 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 | $70,739 |
|---|---|
| You could take a cut of | −$613 |
| Prices in Texas | 97 vs 93 |
State taxes and state price levels only. No city tax, and no housing market.
Where the difference actually sits
Each line compares Wisconsin 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 | -21.72% | Rent and owners’ equivalent rent |
| Goods | -6.4% | Groceries, fuel, clothing |
| Other services | -1.79% | Haircuts, repairs, childcare |
| All items | -6.9% | The three above, weighted |
What a salary is worth here
A salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, spent at Wisconsin prices, buys what $80,561 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 Wisconsin, 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 Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin.
- 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 Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin to another jurisdiction requires both figures, not either alone.
Questions people ask
What does a lower cost of living actually get me?
More from the same money. Prices in Wisconsin sit below the national level, so every hundred dollars spent covers $93 of national-average goods. That is why a smaller salary here can leave you better off than a larger one somewhere expensive.
Is this number a percentage?
It is an index rather than a rate. One hundred is the national average by construction, so the distance from it is measured in points, not percent.
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 Wisconsin away from the national average rather than the shopping.
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 $80,561 in Wisconsin; income tax then moves it again, independently.
How does a below-average price level translate into real income?
Wisconsin's all-items parity is at or below the national average, so nominal income understates purchasing power: one hundred dollars purchases $93 of national-average consumption. ⚠️ Parity measures prices, not availability or quality, and does not capture differences in the composition of what is bought.
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 Wisconsin'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 $80,561 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.