Boston vs San Jose
Metro-area medians — Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area vs San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Boston and San Jose are evenly matched, each taking 4 of the clearly-decided measures.
Boston and San Jose cost about the same to live in, but San Jose households earn about 40% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in San Jose.
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, Boston leaves you about $375/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 Boston for
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Choose San Jose for
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Average commute
Boston vs San Jose — frequently asked
- Is Boston cheaper than San Jose?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Boston and San Jose metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Boston or San Jose?
- San Jose has the higher median household income — $164,801 versus $117,825 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 40% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Boston or San Jose?
- A paycheck stretches further in San Jose. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $149,245 there versus $108,829 in Boston.
- Which has cheaper rent, Boston or San Jose?
- Boston has cheaper rent — a median of $2,093/mo versus $2,827/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).