Austin to Miami on the C2ER ACCRA composite: +5.1% on the headline, +13.0% on housing alone. A $75,000 Austin salary lines up with roughly $78,846 in Miami after the consumer-price adjustment. State tax stacks on top — sidebar below.
Salary-equivalence math is the same across every cost-of-living comparison: scale by index ratio. For Austin (117) to Miami (123) that ratio is 1.051. The table below applies it to the three anchor incomes most relocators use as decision points.
| Austin salary | Equivalent in Miami | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $52,564 | +$2,564 |
| $75,000 | $78,846 | +$3,846 |
| $150,000 | $157,692 | +$7,692 |
The breakdown below decomposes the Austin-vs-Miami cost-of-living gap into its five constituent sub-indexes. National average for each is 100; the delta column shows how each line item changes between the two metros. Housing routinely shows the largest swing.
| Category | Austin | Miami | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 138 | 156 | +13.0% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 95 | 109 | +14.7% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 102 | 112 | +9.8% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 98 | 100 | +2.0% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 104 | 105 | +1.0% |
| Composite | 117 | 123 | +5.1% |
Austin, TX and Miami, FL sit within roughly 15% of each other on the composite cost-of-living index — close enough that the move is best framed as a lateral, not an upgrade or downgrade. The headline gap is about +5%, but the more interesting story is the category mix: housing alone runs +13% different between the two cities, which is usually larger than the composite gap because non-housing categories compress around the U.S. average.
For a household whose budget is housing-dominated, this lateral on the composite can still mean a notable change in monthly cash flow. For a household with paid-off housing or a fixed-rate mortgage that does not change with the move, the relevant gap is on the variable categories — groceries, utilities, transportation — where the differences are real but smaller. Either way, treat the move as a sideways step in pure cost terms and let lifestyle, career, and tax factors break the tie.
State income tax is not part of the cost-of-living composite, but it is part of your real take-home math. Texas's effective top rate is 0.00%; Florida's is 0.00%. On a $75,000 salary the two states pull $0 and $0 respectively — a gap of $0 that compounds with the consumer-price difference.
Plug your real numbers into the take-home pay calculator to see the after-tax difference at your filing status and salary. Federal withholding is constant; the state side is what changes when you cross state lines. See the take-home pay calculator or the state-by-state take-home pay article for the precise after-tax number.
Yes — by about 5% on the composite. Miami's C2ER index reads 123; Austin's reads 117. Housing is the largest line item in that gap; groceries, transport, healthcare, and utilities each add small same-direction contributions.
The equivalent salary in Miami is about $78,846. You get there by multiplying $75,000 by the index ratio (1.05, derived from 123 and 117). This is a consumer-price comparison; layer state tax separately for after-tax parity.
Housing carries the gap. Austin indexes at 138 on housing; Miami indexes at 156. The other categories — groceries (95 vs 109), transportation (102 vs 112), utilities (104 vs 105) — move smaller distances. Housing variance is what makes metros feel meaningfully different on cost.
Not directly. Consumer-price indexes like C2ER ACCRA exclude state and federal income tax. To get the full picture for Texas versus Florida, combine the equivalent-salary number above with the state-tax delta in the sidebar; both effects compound when you cross state lines.