$75,000 in Nashville maps to roughly $81,250 of equivalent purchasing power in Austin on consumer prices alone. The composite index gap is +8.3%, with housing carrying +15.0% of that move. Source: C2ER ACCRA quarterly cost-of-living index, BLS CPI 2024 weights.
The salary you would need in Austin to match your Nashville purchasing power is your current salary times the index ratio 1.083. The three rows below show the result at the entry-level, mid-career, and senior anchor points most job posts negotiate around.
| Nashville salary | Equivalent in Austin | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $54,167 | +$4,167 |
| $75,000 | $81,250 | +$6,250 |
| $150,000 | $162,500 | +$12,500 |
The breakdown below decomposes the Nashville-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 | Nashville | Austin | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Rent + median home price | 120 | 138 | +15.0% |
| Groceries Supermarket basket | 96 | 95 | -1.0% |
| Transportation Fuel, transit, parking | 96 | 102 | +6.3% |
| Healthcare Doctor visits, prescriptions | 95 | 98 | +3.2% |
| Utilities Electric, gas, internet | 98 | 104 | +6.1% |
| Composite | 108 | 117 | +8.3% |
A relocation from Nashville, TN to Austin, TX is, on cost-of-living grounds alone, close to a wash: the composite index difference is about +8%, 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 Tennessee 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.
Tax is the silent leg of any cross-state move. Tennessee runs a 0.00% top-marginal or flat state income tax; Texas runs 0.00%. That maps to $0 versus $0 at the $75,000 anchor income — a $0 difference layered on top of the consumer-price comparison above.
Run your actual salary and filing status through the take-home pay calculator for a precise after-tax number. The federal layer is the same in either metro; only the state piece shifts. See the take-home pay calculator or the state-by-state take-home pay article for the precise after-tax number.
On the headline composite, yes: Austin sits at 117 versus Nashville at 108 on C2ER ACCRA, a gap of about 8%. Housing carries most of that gap; non-housing categories add smaller, same-direction contributions.
Approximately $81,250. The math: $75,000 times the index ratio 1.08 (which is 117/108) equals the salary in Austin that preserves your real-terms spending power. State tax sits on top — handled separately in the sidebar above.
Housing — and it isn't close. Nashville's housing index is 120; Austin's is 138. The remaining sub-indexes (groceries 96/95, transport 96/102, utilities 98/104) contribute, but the housing line is what produces the noticeable real-world budget difference.
State tax is separate from the cost-of-living index. The C2ER ACCRA composite covers consumer prices only; the sidebar on this page shows the Tennessee vs Texas state-tax delta at three salary anchors. Add the two effects for the full after-tax comparison — they don't double-count.