If the new graduate continues to live like a college student, find a college or university in the area that has an off-campus (not dorm, not living with parent) student budget listed. Subtract tuition and books, then rescale it to cover a full year instead of the partial year that is the academic year to get an estimate.
If you search for cost of living comparison calculators, you can find different ones with different focuses. None can tell a specific person what it will cost them bc people have different views on standard of living, needs, etc. Here are 2 with different focuses:
This one is good for general demographic info:
https://www.moving.com/real-estate/compare-cities/ (this one is good for highlighting public transportation useage.)
This one will break down comparative costs by housing, transportation, food, etc.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator
Fascinating @Mom2aphysicsgeek - thanks for those links.
@ucalumni Why cite an example from Texas though? How many states do have no state income tax/payroll tax? Texas makes up for that by having very high property taxes, but this is not the sort of thing young (poorer) grads will mull over so much. It is old people with high incomes LOL. Frankly if I thought many younger people (millennial is such a pointless term) sat down and looked at things like state taxes and COL variability, I would be more relieved.
Agree. Texas isn’t a fair example.
And does that calculation include the child tax credit?
It is really not hard to go to https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes and try your own examples to test the claim in reply #35. For example, in New York, NY (with high state and local income taxes), $50,000 income becomes:
Single, no dependents: $37,952
Married, 4 in household: $40,941
Looks like that site does not include the child tax credit, which is dependent on whether they are under 17. So if the family had the maximum $4,000 credit for two kids under 17, then the net would be $44,941. However, if it had one in college and one under 17, the net would be $43,441. Or two in college, the net would be $41,941.
So yes, the new grad has less net at the same $50,000 income than his/her parents did earning $50,000. But the $4,009 to $7,009 advantage that the parents had is likely more than eaten up by the higher costs of a household of four rather than one.
There are 9: Texas, Florida, Wyoming, Alaska, Tennessee, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, New Hampshire
When I moved from California (high) to Florida (none) my federal taxes went up quite a bit so it wasn’t like you save ALL those state taxes. I don’t really know the effect of the new tax laws and a limit on SALT.