El Centro vs Odessa
Metro-area medians — El Centro, CA Metro Area vs Odessa, TX Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Odessa comes out ahead, winning 7 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
El Centro and Odessa cost about the same to live in, but Odessa households earn about 28% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Odessa.
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, Odessa leaves you about $4,047/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 Odessa for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Air quality (median AQI)
El Centro vs Odessa — frequently asked
- Is El Centro cheaper than Odessa?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the El Centro and Odessa metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, El Centro or Odessa?
- Odessa has the higher median household income — $78,058 versus $60,749 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 28% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in El Centro or Odessa?
- A paycheck stretches further in Odessa. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $83,132 there versus $63,829 in El Centro.
- Which has cheaper rent, El Centro or Odessa?
- El Centro has cheaper rent — a median of $1,062/mo versus $1,337/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).