Compare salary buying power between locations using 2024 BEA Regional Price Parities, assess a job offer, and build a category-level planning budget.
Salary comparison
Equivalent salary
$113,543
Iowa to California
Your budget-mix estimate
$147,157
Uses entered shares and BEA category indexes
Offer vs equivalent
-$8,543
Offer is below the cost-adjusted equivalent
Cost index change
+26.2%
87.8 to 110.7
Offer purchasing power
-7.5%
Compared with current salary after RPP adjustment
To maintain the same broad purchasing power as $90,000 in Iowa, the overall-RPP estimate is $113,543 in California. The $105,000 offer is $8,543 below that benchmark.
Category planning breakdown
- Current salary allocation
- Equivalent allocation
| Category | Normalized share | Current allocation | Equivalent allocation | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | 35.0% | $31,500 | $74,430 | +$42,930 |
| Food | 15.0% | $13,500 | $15,281 | +$1,781 |
| Transportation | 15.0% | $13,500 | $15,093 | +$1,593 |
| Healthcare | 10.0% | $9,000 | $9,936 | +$936 |
| Other | 25.0% | $22,500 | $32,417 | +$9,917 |
Category rows use BEA rent for housing, goods for food, other services for healthcare, a goods/services blend for transportation, and a broad category blend for other spending. These are planning proxies, not household-specific quotes.
Decision checks
Housing
Compare actual rent or mortgage payments separately. Housing often varies more than an overall regional index suggests.
Taxes and benefits
RPPs compare price levels, not income taxes, payroll deductions, health-plan costs, retirement matches, or equity compensation.
Household fit
Childcare, transportation, and medical spending can make your personal cost change materially different from the regional average.
How this calculator works
BEA Regional Price Parities express a location's price level relative to the national level of 100. Overall salary equivalence is current salary x target all-items RPP / source all-items RPP.
The budget-mix estimate applies BEA's goods, housing-rent, and other-services indexes to your normalized category shares. Offer purchasing power uses the all-items RPP. Results are pre-tax and do not include relocation costs, local taxes, or compensation differences.
Worked example: The current $90,000 salary at an index of 87.8 converts to $113,543 using overall RPPs and $147,157 using the entered category mix. The offer changes modeled overall purchasing power by -7.5%.
Source vintage: BEA 2024 RPP estimates, current release dated February 19, 2026; presets reviewed July 9, 2026.
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