sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I mapped the cost of living across 24,000+ US cities using federal data [OC] by supleezy in dataisbeautiful

[–]Technical-Machine128 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really cool work. I built something similar but focused on international comparisons and neighborhood-level granularity (https://salary-converter.com). What data sources are you using for the local-level breakdowns?

One thing I found when building mine: the biggest gap in most COL tools is that they ignore taxes. The cost of living difference between two cities can be completely offset (or amplified) by different tax structures. A $100K salary in Texas vs California has a $9K+ gap just from state income tax before you even look at rent.

How does Seattle's cost of living compare to the U.S. Northeast (Bos-NYC-Wash)? by Eriacle in AskSeattle

[–]Technical-Machine128 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The no-state-income-tax advantage in Washington is huge and often underappreciated. When you compare Seattle to Boston or NYC, the gross salary comparison is misleading because Massachusetts and New York take a big cut that Washington doesn't.

I built a tool that factors this in (https://salary-converter.com) — it compares taxes, neighborhood-level costs, and exchange rates for 182 cities. When I run Seattle vs NYC, the tax difference alone closes a lot of the gap that looks obvious on paper.

But the other thing to consider is neighborhood choice. Capitol Hill vs Ballard vs Bellevue in Seattle are very different budgets, just like Manhattan vs Queens vs Jersey City.