Cost of Living Does Not Save the Dallas Offer
The standard advice is that a lower salary in Texas goes further than a big one in California. We tested it against the Bureau of Economic Analysis price index for each metro. The advice does not survive contact with the data.
In this guide (5 sections)
It is the most repeated piece of advice in every US job group: the Bay Area salary looks enormous, but once rent takes its cut you end up no better off than someone on a modest package in Texas.
It is testable. The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes Regional Price Parities — how expensive each US metro is relative to the national average, where the whole United States equals 100. We took the 2024 figures and divided our H-1B wage medians by them.
What a city's wage is worth after local prices
| City | Filings | Median wage | Price level (US = 100) | Housing price level | Adjusted wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain View, CA | 4,761 | $196,000 | 110.4 | 211.9 | $177,499 |
| Menlo Park, CA | 2,819 | $202,000 | 115.6 | 194.7 | $174,721 |
| Palo Alto, CA | 2,618 | $186,833 | 110.4 | 211.9 | $169,198 |
| Sunnyvale, CA | 7,860 | $181,532 | 110.4 | 211.9 | $164,397 |
| San Jose, CA | 8,400 | $180,000 | 110.4 | 211.9 | $163,010 |
| San Francisco, CA | 8,799 | $187,574 | 115.6 | 194.7 | $162,243 |
| Santa Clara, CA | 6,138 | $177,758 | 110.4 | 211.9 | $160,979 |
| Redmond, WA | 4,727 | $171,200 | 111.1 | 151.3 | $154,050 |
| Bellevue, WA | 6,395 | $163,322 | 111.1 | 151.3 | $146,961 |
| Seattle, WA | 12,009 | $160,600 | 111.1 | 151.3 | $144,512 |
| New York, NY | 24,060 | $158,974 | 112.6 | 148.6 | $141,231 |
| Austin, TX | 10,113 | $132,891 | 98.1 | 120.4 | $135,512 |
| Charlotte, NC | 4,966 | $114,706 | 97.3 | 97.6 | $117,831 |
| Boston, MA | 4,757 | $126,085 | 108.3 | 148.4 | $116,459 |
| Atlanta, GA | 5,759 | $115,000 | 100.1 | 111.0 | $114,933 |
| Chicago, IL | 6,637 | $119,000 | 103.6 | 112.0 | $114,870 |
| Dallas, TX | 5,747 | $115,578 | 103.1 | 117.9 | $112,113 |
| Plano, TX | 6,001 | $113,000 | 103.1 | 117.9 | $109,613 |
| Irving, TX | 5,291 | $112,930 | 103.1 | 117.9 | $109,545 |
| Houston, TX | 5,511 | $106,517 | 98.6 | 104.5 | $107,997 |
| Phoenix, AZ | 2,854 | $111,072 | 103.3 | 121.2 | $107,507 |
The adjustment barely moves the answer
Take the comparison people actually face — a Dallas suburb against a Bay Area one.
| Plano, TX | Sunnyvale, CA | Ratio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median H-1B wage | $113,000 | $181,532 | 1.61x |
| Overall price level | 103.1 | 110.4 | 1.07x |
| Adjusted wage | $109,613 | $164,397 | 1.50x |
A 61% pay gap narrows to 50%. It does not disappear, and it is not close. On these numbers the Bay Area offer wins comfortably.
So why does everyone believe the opposite?
Because of the one column people actually live in.
But housing is one component. Goods, utilities and other services are far closer between the two metros, which is why the all-items gap is only 7%. The lived experience of rent is real; generalising from it to the whole cost of living is the error.
If housing is a very large share of your budget — a single earner renting alone, or someone sending money home — the overall index understates your pain and the gap narrows further for you personally. If you share housing, it overstates it.
Two things the table says that nobody expects
Dallas-Fort Worth is not a cheap metro. At 103.1 it sits above the US average and above Austin (98.1), Houston (98.6), Charlotte (97.3) and Atlanta (100.1). The suburbs chosen precisely because they are supposed to be affordable are pricier than the Texas capital.
Austin is the strongest value in the table. A $132,891 median against a price level of 98.1 produces an adjusted $135,512 — fourth highest of all 21 cities, ahead of Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and every Dallas suburb. It is the only city here where the adjusted figure is higher than the nominal one by a meaningful margin, alongside Charlotte and Houston.
What this data cannot tell you
Regional Price Parities are metro-level, so every city inside a metro gets the same index. Plano, Irving and Frisco all carry the Dallas-Fort Worth figure, and Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and Mountain View all carry San Jose's. Within-metro differences — and they are large — are invisible here.
The price index is BEA's 2024 release; the wages come from the Department of Labor's quarterly LCA disclosure file. The two are close but not the same period, so read the ratios rather than the exact dollars.
The wage is base pay promised on the filing. It excludes bonus and equity, which are a much larger share of Bay Area compensation than Texas compensation — meaning this comparison, if anything, understates the Bay Area advantage. State income tax runs the other way: Texas has none and California does, and nothing in this table accounts for that. See our guide to US tax on F-1 and H-1B.
Finally, an adjusted wage is not a quality-of-life score. Commute, weather, family, visa risk at the employer and whether you can ever buy a house are not in this index.
Questions
Does a Bay Area H-1B salary really go further than a Texas one?
Why do people say cost of living cancels out Bay Area salaries?
Is Dallas a cheap place to live?
Which US city gives the best adjusted H-1B salary outside California?
Does this account for state income tax?
Sources: US Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities by State and Metro Area · US Department of Labor — Foreign Labor Certification Performance Data (LCA disclosure files) · US Department of Labor — Labor Condition Application (LCA) programme
