Cedar Rapids vs Duluth
Metro-area medians — Cedar Rapids, IA Metro Area vs Duluth, MN-WI Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Cedar Rapids comes out ahead, winning 6 of the 7 clearly-decided measures.
Cedar Rapids and Duluth cost about the same to live in, but Cedar Rapids households earn about 9% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Cedar Rapids.
For your salary & household
Enter your pay and household size to see what it's really worth here — the numbers update live and the link stays shareable.
On $75,000 for just you, Cedar Rapids leaves you about $713/yr better off after tax and local prices.
Take-home estimates a single filer taking the standard deduction (2025 federal brackets, FICA, and state income tax) and isn't tax advice. “Real value” rebases take-home to average U.S. prices using the BEA cost-of-living index; the per-person figure uses the OECD square-root equivalence scale.
Choose Cedar Rapids for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
Cedar Rapids vs Duluth — frequently asked
- Is Cedar Rapids cheaper than Duluth?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Cedar Rapids and Duluth metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Cedar Rapids or Duluth?
- Cedar Rapids has the higher median household income — $75,295 versus $69,309 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 9% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Cedar Rapids or Duluth?
- A paycheck stretches further in Cedar Rapids. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $84,636 there versus $78,079 in Duluth.
- Which has cheaper rent, Cedar Rapids or Duluth?
- Cedar Rapids has cheaper rent — a median of $933/mo versus $993/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).