Most people compare job offers by salary. That's wrong.
A $100,000 salary in California puts $67,800 in your pocket after federal, state, and FICA taxes. The same salary in Texas? $74,350. That's $6,550 more per year — $546 more per month — without earning a single dollar more.
And that's before cost of living. Adjusted for housing, groceries, and everyday expenses, $100K in California buys the same lifestyle as roughly $70K in Texas.
Here are the biggest gaps at $100K salary:
California → Texas: save $6,550/year in taxes alone
New York → Florida: save $5,800/year
New Jersey → North Carolina: save $4,200/year
Oregon → Washington: save $3,100/year
Minnesota → South Dakota: save $4,900/year
The nine states with zero income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming.
But zero tax doesn't always mean cheaper. Texas property taxes run 1.8% vs California's 0.73%. On a $350K house, that's $6,300 vs $2,555 — Texas claws back $3,745 of your tax savings through your property tax bill.
The only way to know for sure: run the actual numbers for your situation.
I built a free calculator that does exactly this — enter your salary, pick two states, and see the real take-home difference after all taxes and cost of living:→ takehometax.com
And if you're thinking about buying property in that new state, check what you can actually afford: → mortgagemathlab.com
Next week: The 5 cities where rental properties still cash flow in 2026 (and the 5 everyone thinks are good but aren't).
— The Numbers Letter