A $75,000 salary in Los Angeles requires about $52,861 in Austin to keep your real spending power flat. Housing leads the gap at -35.8% versus a composite -29.5% on the C2ER ACCRA cost-of-living index. Tax sits separately — see the state-tax sidebar.
Multiply your Los Angeles salary by 0.705 (the index ratio 117/166) to get the Austin number that preserves your real-terms spending. The three anchor rows below — $50k, $75k, $150k — are the most common comparison points for relocation offers.
| Los Angeles salary | Equivalent in Austin | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $35,241 | -$14,759 |
| $75,000 | $52,861 | -$22,139 |
| $150,000 | $105,723 | -$44,277 |
The breakdown below decomposes the Los Angeles-vs-Austin 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 | Los Angeles | Austin | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 215 | 138 | -35.8% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 110 | 95 | -13.6% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 132 | 102 | -22.7% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 103 | 98 | -4.9% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 121 | 104 | -14.0% |
| Composite | 166 | 117 | -29.5% |
The composite index gap between Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX is real: roughly 30 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 (36% lower in Austin), 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 Los Angeles salary stretches further in Austin, 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. California runs a 9.30% top-marginal or flat state income tax; Texas runs 0.00%. That maps to $6,975 versus $0 at the $75,000 anchor income — a $6,975 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. The composite index for Austin, TX is 117; Los Angeles, CA sits at 166. Austin runs roughly 30% below Los Angeles, with the housing sub-index driving most of the difference and grocery, transport, and utility prices following the same direction at smaller scale.
Roughly $52,861 per year in Austin matches what $75,000 buys in Los Angeles, based on the C2ER ACCRA composite ratio of 0.70. The result is pre-tax — add the state-tax delta from the sidebar for the full after-tax comparison.
The housing sub-index does the heavy lifting here: 215 in Los Angeles versus 138 in Austin. Groceries, transport, healthcare, and utilities all show smaller deltas (groceries 110/95; transport 132/102; utilities 121/104). When two metros disagree on cost of living, housing is almost always the reason.
No — the composite cost-of-living index focuses on consumer prices and does not include state income tax. The state-tax sidebar on this page handles that adjustment separately. California's flat or top-marginal state rate is layered against Texas's, and the gap can be several thousand dollars per year at a typical salary level. Stack the consumer-price equivalence with the state-tax delta for the full after-tax picture.