A $75,000 salary in Chicago requires about $58,836 in San Antonio to keep your real spending power flat. Housing leads the gap at -34.8% versus a composite -21.6% on the C2ER ACCRA cost-of-living index. Tax sits separately — see the state-tax sidebar.
If your goal is to land in San Antonio with the same consumer-spending power you have in Chicago, multiply your current salary by 0.784. That ratio is the C2ER ACCRA composite index of San Antonio divided by the composite of Chicago (91/116).
| Chicago salary | Equivalent in San Antonio | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $39,224 | -$10,776 |
| $75,000 | $58,836 | -$16,164 |
| $150,000 | $117,672 | -$32,328 |
The C2ER ACCRA composite index aggregates five spending categories. Looking at them individually shows where the Chicago-to-San Antonio gap actually comes from — the headline number is an average that compresses larger category-level differences. National average for each sub-index is 100.
| Category | Chicago | San Antonio | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 132 | 86 | -34.8% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 100 | 90 | -10.0% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 108 | 95 | -12.0% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 99 | 95 | -4.0% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 112 | 96 | -14.3% |
| Composite | 116 | 91 | -21.6% |
The composite index gap between Chicago, IL and San Antonio, TX is real: roughly 22 index points separate the two metros on C2ER ACCRA's published quarterly cost-of-living survey. Translated to a household budget, that gap shows up most loudly in housing (35% lower in San Antonio), with secondary effects on utilities and groceries. Healthcare and transportation move less between the two cities — those line items track regional patterns more than metro-specific ones.
What this means for a relocation decision: every dollar of Chicago salary stretches further in San Antonio, but the stretch is not uniform across categories. A family-of-four budget heavy on housing and groceries sees a bigger improvement than a single renter who already keeps rent low and spends mostly on dining and travel. Sketch your actual category mix before deciding what a "fair" pay adjustment looks like — most remote-pay zone formulas under-credit the housing-heavy household and over-credit the dining-heavy one.
Tax is the silent leg of any cross-state move. Illinois runs a 4.95% top-marginal or flat state income tax; Texas runs 0.00%. That maps to $3,713 versus $0 at the $75,000 anchor income — a $3,713 difference layered on top of the consumer-price comparison above.
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.
No — San Antonio comes in about 22% cheaper on the composite (91 vs 116 for Chicago). Housing carries most of the gap, with smaller contributions from grocery, transport, and utility sub-indexes.
Roughly $58,836 per year in San Antonio matches what $75,000 buys in Chicago, based on the C2ER ACCRA composite ratio of 0.78. The result is pre-tax — add the state-tax delta from the sidebar for the full after-tax comparison.
Housing is the largest line item in any cost-of-living comparison and the one with the most metro-to-metro variance. Chicago's housing sub-index sits at 132; San Antonio's is 86. That gap reflects rent and home-price differences captured in the C2ER ACCRA quarterly survey. Groceries (Chicago 100 vs San Antonio 90), transportation (108 vs 95), and utilities (112 vs 96) all contribute, but housing is the dominant factor.
Not directly. Consumer-price indexes like C2ER ACCRA exclude state and federal income tax. To get the full picture for Illinois versus Texas, combine the equivalent-salary number above with the state-tax delta in the sidebar; both effects compound when you cross state lines.