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If you wince every time it’s your turn to pick up the group brunch tab, it may be time to start thinking about asking for a raise. Where you live makes a big difference in the salary you make, so if your boss isn’t too keen on giving you that cost of living raise, it may be time to start looking outside the box. Luckily, Business Insider released their list of the 20 best U.S. cities to live in based on which ones pay the highest median wages. It may be time to think about using some of those free travel points you’ve been hoarding away, because some of these places are pretty awesome.
20. Santa Rosa, CA: $49,800
19. Chicago, IL: $50,410
18. Portland, OR: $50,710
17. Houston, TX: $50,830
16. Worcester, MA: $51,330
15. Philadelphia, PA: $51,740
14. Sacramento, CA: $51,970
13. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN: $52,080
12. Baltimore, MD: $52,460
11. Los Angeles, CA: $53,000
10. San Diego, CA: $53,020
9. Denver, CO: $53,060
8. New Haven, CT: $53,350
7. Hartford, CT: $55,580
6. Seattle, WA: $57,370
5. New York City, NY: $59,060
4. Boston, MA: $60,540
3. Washington DC: $64,930
2. San Francisco, CA: $64,990
1. San Jose, CA: $75,770
Time to pack up my bags and move to California? Well, not quite. These medians don’t account for the cost of living, which means that if you’re living in San Francisco on $65K a year, you might as well be flipping burgers with everyone else from your hometown who dropped out of community college. However, assuming you’re in a more lucrative career, this higher median wage can only help you out. If your employer turns out to be a little too stingy with those annual cost-of-living raises, it may be time to start looking around – I hear Houston is just lovely this time of year. .
[via Business Insider]
Image via Unsplash
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Steph W.
Steph W. is a new Master's degree graduate with an intern's salary and six-figure taste. She realizes her expectations far exceed reality, so she spends her days pinning away Loubs she pretends are in her physical closet instead of her virtual one. Her hobbies include attempting to trapping her boyfriend into marriage before he finds out how insane she is and pretending that Black Box wine tastes as good as the kind she could afford when she was gainfully employed. Send her tips for getting out of student debt at recruitchairtsm@gmail.com
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living in a top 5 city and not making the median salary for city number 20 PGP
You couldn’t pay me enough to live in Worcester. That “city” is a human landfill and makes driving in Boston seem enjoyable by comparison.
Can confirm. Worked in Wootown for almost a year. Lucky to have lived outside of it though. Much like Hartford and New Haven, the extra money you are getting paid is more or less a small life insurance as any given moment you’re likely to get stabbed or killed in a car crash.
Guns waivin new haven
Problem is once you hit around #10 the cost of living outstrips the wage gains exponentially. Love watching the monsters in Waco TX buy $100,000 houses on HGTV while I consider “How much stabbing is too much stabbing” to try to find a neighborhood with affordable housing in DC.
I still won’t move to California because of their ridiculous property taxes.
California’s property taxes are comparatively low as a result of direct democracy. Like, you could have named just about anything else except for that and you’d have a point, but not that one.
California has the worst taxes in the country, period. Property, personal, corporate, all of it. It makes Illinois looks like a cheap and fiscally sound place to live in by comparison.
My property taxes in Texas are higher than they were in CA (by about $2,000), property was same price (although 4 times more sq. ft.). However, 1) No income tax 2) Everything is cheaper and 3) You can bake the property tax into rent (and actually have rooms to rent) making it only a factor if you live by yourself.
Well real estate in the South is drastically cheaper than anywhere else in the country. You can get a house down there for $250K that would easily go for four times that up here.
“In the South” is a pretty broad descriptor. Living in Atlanta you can pay $250k for a house in the burbs or $750k for the same house inside the perimeter. It’s all relative.
True, it is all relative. Generally speaking though, property below the Mason-Dixon line is less expensive than it’s counter-points.
That’s only because of New York and Chicago. Cost of living in a large southern city is much more expensive than anywhere in the Midwest (sans Chicago).
And that’s why California sucks. With two renters I essentially pay nothing for mortgage/property tax/homeowners insurance/utilities after mortgage interest and state property tax deduction when filing taxes. In contrast, for a 1BR condo in CA, I was on the hook for everything, including a $400/mo HOA.
I feel like that Yelp girl that got fired for her letter to the CEO a few weeks back saw a list like this and thought that it would be smart to move to the Bay Area…but she wasn’t smart enough to consider the cost of living and taxes here.
That girl still boils my blood.
If there was a “Worst Millennial of the Year” award, she would be the top candidate.
Baltimore is a really fun city, if $10 all you can drink on Fridays is fun. Property tax is fucking outrageous though.
Houston is pretty good. Its like what Austin claims to be, weird, without the artificial hipsterness since houston isnt generally associated too much with the weird vibe Austin likes to cling to.. Its pretty artsy and all the local breweries/distilleries are the tits for brunch. Plus just awesome asian food left and right but traffic sucks….and occasionally people dance naked on top of semitrucks during morning rush hour. #keephoustonweird
Houston should be #1 based on cost of living and taxes
Every net salary on this list equates to working poor/pay check to pay check in each city except maybe Worcester and St. Paul..
I guess I beat the system. Just left DC took a job in Baltimore. DC was just not for me anymore after a year and a half right out of college. Got a $14k raise, and now my rent is going to be $500 a month cheaper.