Los Angeles vs Miami
Metro-area medians — Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metro Area vs Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Los Angeles and Miami are evenly matched, each taking 3 of the clearly-decided measures.
Los Angeles and Miami cost about the same to live in, but Los Angeles households earn about 20% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Los Angeles.
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, Miami leaves you about $2,378/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 Los Angeles for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
Los Angeles vs Miami — frequently asked
- Is Los Angeles cheaper than Miami?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Los Angeles and Miami metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Los Angeles or Miami?
- Los Angeles has the higher median household income — $96,405 versus $80,625 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 20% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Los Angeles or Miami?
- A paycheck stretches further in Los Angeles. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $84,889 there versus $70,628 in Miami.
- Which has cheaper rent, Los Angeles or Miami?
- Rents are close — $2,114/mo in the Los Angeles metro versus $2,083/mo in Miami (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).