The core monthly cash-flow formula
The model is deliberately transparent. For each scenario, monthly planning take-home is annual gross pay multiplied by (1 minus the effective tax-rate assumption), divided by 12. Money left after expenses is planning take-home minus monthly housing minus other monthly costs.
One-time moving costs and the break-even clock
The move can increase monthly cash flow yet take time to pay for itself. Our break-even calculation divides the one-time moving cost by the positive monthly cash-flow increase. If the destination does not improve monthly cash flow, no finite payback is shown. If the move has no initial cost and improves cash flow, break-even is immediate.
The 12-month and selected-horizon net advantage equal monthly difference multiplied by months, minus one-time moving cost. The salary threshold solves the same equation backward: how much gross annual destination pay would make the net effect zero over the chosen horizon, holding all other inputs fixed? This is not a living-wage standard or salary recommendation.
Where occupational pay comes from
The displayed salary reference file contains 47,380 metro-occupation rows from the open US Wage Atlas dataset. It derives annual wage percentiles from May 2025 BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics and metro price-parity metrics from 2024 BEA data. The derived data is used under CC BY 4.0 with attribution. A published median reflects a sampled occupation and geography, not an offer available today. Geographic coverage is limited to metros that can be paired with the published BEA dataset.
What a regional price index does and does not mean
BEA Regional Price Parities publishes price-level comparisons where the national average is indexed to 100. A reading of 110 means the aggregate regional price level is around 10 percent above the national level for that data year; it does not mean all rents or groceries are precisely 10 percent higher, nor does it estimate your expenses. We show the index as context only and never multiply your personal rent by it.
How HUD housing references are treated
HUD Fair Market Rents are government estimates of gross rents for standard-quality rental units at the program's reference percentile. HUD FMR areas can differ from BLS metropolitan definitions. For that reason, RelocationMath requires the visitor to choose an actual HUD market/county before applying an FMR reference. We never silently treat one metropolitan average as the rent for a different geography.
What the tax assumption does not include
We do not calculate federal or state income tax automatically. Your effective percentage can approximate tax, payroll contributions and deductions if you decide to include them, but it is only your assumption. A real tax estimate requires filing status, local rules, deductions, taxable benefits, payroll programs and often multiple sources of income. When comparing states, calculate each percentage independently from reliable current sources.
What the model excludes
- Income growth, raises, bonuses, equity and changing tax laws after the modeled period.
- Home purchase closing costs, mortgage details or appreciation: enter an all-in monthly housing amount if you own.
- Commuting time, job security, school costs or access to healthcare unless you enter appropriate monthly expenses.
- Inflation and investment return: the model holds its monthly assumptions constant.
- Unpublished wage entries or suppressed values: these remain unavailable, never filled with guessed numbers.
Corrections, freshness and privacy
Source years are always named separately rather than replacing them with today's date. Wage references are refreshed only when an attributable reviewed source snapshot is updated. Your input values are processed in your own browser. A scenario sharing link encodes those values in its URL—do not share it if the contents are private. Report a calculation or citation error via contact.