Los Angeles vs New York
Metro-area medians — Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metro Area vs New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metro Area — not the cities proper.
New York comes out ahead, winning 7 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
Los Angeles and New York cost about the same to live in, but New York households earn about 4% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in New York.
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, New York leaves you about $11/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 New York for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Los Angeles vs New York — frequently asked
- Is Los Angeles cheaper than New York?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Los Angeles and New York metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Los Angeles or New York?
- New York has the higher median household income — $99,852 versus $96,405 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 4% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Los Angeles or New York?
- A paycheck stretches further in New York. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $88,708 there versus $84,889 in Los Angeles.
- Which has cheaper rent, Los Angeles or New York?
- New York has cheaper rent — a median of $1,851/mo versus $2,114/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).