What a salary is worth after a move: purchasing-power equivalence between two states.
BEA regional price paritiesA cost-of-living index of 91.1 against 115.0 means the same basket costs 20.8% less. Holding your standard of living fixed, that is the salary that leaves you neither better nor worse off.
Purchasing power is what your take-home buys, not what your offer letter says. State income tax moves that as much as rent does.
Taking the same $120,000 to Texas is effectively a raise of $36,105: you would only need $83,895 there to live the way you live now.
Price levels are the MERIC Cost of Living index (2025 annual average, US = 100), which is a state-wide figure: a metro inside a cheap state can run well above its state number. Tax figures assume a single filer taking the standard deduction on W-2 wages. Housing, the largest single line, varies more within a state than between states.
This answers one question in isolation. The playbook puts your answers in order and tells you which one to act on first.
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