El Paso vs Tulsa
Metro-area medians — El Paso, TX Metro Area vs Tulsa, OK Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Tulsa comes out ahead, winning 6 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
El Paso and Tulsa cost about the same to live in, but Tulsa households earn about 16% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Tulsa.
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, El Paso leaves you about $2,910/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 Tulsa for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Average commute
- + Air quality (median AQI)
El Paso vs Tulsa — frequently asked
- Is El Paso cheaper than Tulsa?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the El Paso and Tulsa metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, El Paso or Tulsa?
- Tulsa has the higher median household income — $69,658 versus $59,834 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 16% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in El Paso or Tulsa?
- A paycheck stretches further in Tulsa. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $78,080 there versus $66,547 in El Paso.
- Which has cheaper rent, El Paso or Tulsa?
- El Paso has cheaper rent — a median of $1,081/mo versus $1,115/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).