Pittsburgh vs St. Louis
Metro-area medians — Pittsburgh, PA Metro Area vs St. Louis, MO-IL Metro Area — not the cities proper.
St. Louis comes out ahead, winning 5 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
Pittsburgh and St. Louis cost about the same to live in, but St. Louis households earn about 6% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in St. Louis.
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, Pittsburgh leaves you about $595/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 Pittsburgh for
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Choose St. Louis for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Unemployment
- + Average commute
Pittsburgh vs St. Louis — frequently asked
- Is Pittsburgh cheaper than St. Louis?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Pittsburgh and St. Louis metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Pittsburgh or St. Louis?
- St. Louis has the higher median household income — $81,679 versus $77,214 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 6% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Pittsburgh or St. Louis?
- A paycheck stretches further in St. Louis. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $85,898 there versus $81,560 in Pittsburgh.
- Which has cheaper rent, Pittsburgh or St. Louis?
- Pittsburgh has cheaper rent — a median of $1,083/mo versus $1,154/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).