Composite cost of living: -4.9% between Miami and Austin. Equivalent of $75,000 in Miami: about $71,341 in Austin. Housing alone moves -11.5%, the dominant driver per C2ER ACCRA's quarterly cost-of-living publication.
Multiply your Miami salary by 0.951 (the index ratio 117/123) 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.
| Miami salary | Equivalent in Austin | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $47,561 | -$2,439 |
| $75,000 | $71,341 | -$3,659 |
| $150,000 | $142,683 | -$7,317 |
The breakdown below decomposes the Miami-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 | Miami | Austin | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 156 | 138 | -11.5% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 109 | 95 | -12.8% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 112 | 102 | -8.9% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 100 | 98 | -2.0% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 105 | 104 | -1.0% |
| Composite | 123 | 117 | -4.9% |
A relocation from Miami, FL to Austin, TX is, on cost-of-living grounds alone, close to a wash: the composite index difference is about -5%, which falls inside the band where individual budget choices matter more than the metro average. The C2ER ACCRA index is built around an "average household basket" that does not match any specific household exactly, and at this delta size, the personal-spending mix decides whether the move feels cheaper or more expensive in practice.
Tax sits on top of this as a separate axis. If Florida and Texas have meaningfully different state income tax rates, the after-tax comparison can diverge from the consumer-price comparison by several thousand dollars per year at a typical salary. The sidebar quantifies that gap; treat it as additive to the consumer-price story rather than embedded in it.
Consumer-price indexes exclude income tax, so the equivalent-salary number above is a pre-tax comparison. Layered on top: Florida has a top-marginal or flat state income tax of 0.00%, while Texas's is 0.00%. At a $75,000 salary, that translates to roughly $0 of state tax owed in Florida versus $0 in Texas — a $0 difference that no consumer-price index captures.
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.
Short answer: no. Austin runs 5% below Miami on C2ER ACCRA (117 vs 123). Housing accounts for most of the gap; groceries, transportation, and utilities chip in smaller pieces.
Roughly $71,341 per year in Austin matches what $75,000 buys in Miami, based on the C2ER ACCRA composite ratio of 0.95. The result is pre-tax — add the state-tax delta from the sidebar for the full after-tax comparison.
Housing carries the gap. Miami indexes at 156 on housing; Austin indexes at 138. The other categories — groceries (109 vs 95), transportation (112 vs 102), utilities (105 vs 104) — move smaller distances. Housing variance is what makes metros feel meaningfully different on cost.
State tax is a separate adjustment. The composite cost-of-living index is a pre-tax, consumer-prices-only measure. Florida and Texas state-tax rates differ; the sidebar quantifies that gap at common salary anchors so you can add it to the consumer-price equivalent and get an after-tax number.