Durham vs Madison
Metro-area medians — Durham-Chapel Hill, NC Metro Area vs Madison, WI Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Madison comes out ahead, winning 8 of the 9 clearly-decided measures.
Durham and Madison cost about the same to live in, but Madison households earn about 7% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Madison.
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, Durham leaves you about $44/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 Madison for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
- + Average commute
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Durham vs Madison — frequently asked
- Is Durham cheaper than Madison?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Durham and Madison metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Durham or Madison?
- Madison has the higher median household income — $89,714 versus $83,542 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 7% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Durham or Madison?
- A paycheck stretches further in Madison. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $92,216 there versus $85,621 in Durham.
- Which has cheaper rent, Durham or Madison?
- Madison has cheaper rent — a median of $1,437/mo versus $1,598/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).