The most expensive assumption in career moves is that the bigger number wins. Run real taxes, real rents, and ten years of compounding over actual routes, and the higher-paying city loses more often than anyone expects. Below, 12popular relocation routes on the same benchmark offer — a mid-senior software engineer, 25% savings rate, 10-year horizon — computed with this site's simulation engine, not vibes.
12 routes, one benchmark, computed verdicts
The crossover salary is the offer at which each move flips between winning and losing. If your offer is below it, the "raise" is a pay cut in disguise.
| Route | 10-year outcome | Break-even | Benchmark offer | Crossover salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York → Austin | +$76k | Year 1 | $134k | $105.7K |
| San Francisco → Seattle | +$70k | Year 1 | $167k | $142.0K |
| Los Angeles → Las Vegas | +$42k | Year 1 | $130k | $114.0K |
| San Francisco → Austin | +$42k | Year 1 | $134k | $118.5K |
| New York → Denver | +$32k | Year 1 | $138k | $124.8K |
| New York → Miami | +$19k | Year 1 | $133k | $125.5K |
| Boston → Raleigh | +$12k | Year 1 | $133k | $128.1K |
| Chicago → Miami | −$7k | Never | $133k | $135.2K |
| London → Berlin | −$22k | Never | $85k | $96.4K |
| Seattle → Austin | −$28k | Never | $134k | $144.6K |
| San Francisco → New York | −$34k | Never | $167k | $181.3K |
| London → Lisbon | −$39k | Never | $52k | $88.8K |
Why the bigger offer loses
Three mechanisms stack against the raise. First, progressive tax: the raise lands entirely in your top brackets, so a 20% gross raise is often a 13–15% net raise — and if the move crosses into a higher-tax state or country, the whole salary gets re-based. San Francisco to New York is the canonical example: a -$20k raise on paper still loses $34k over ten years.
Second, cost of living scales the whole budget, not just the delta. A 30% more expensive city doesn't take 30% of your raise — it takes 30% of your rent, groceries, insurance, and everything else, every month, growing with local inflation.
Third — the one everyone underweights — the difference compounds. Every dollar of monthly surplus you lose to the pricier city is a dollar that doesn't earn returns for ten years. That's why break-even years matter: a move that's "roughly neutral" in year one is usually clearly won or lost by year ten.
The two numbers to get before deciding
Your crossover salary for the route — the negotiation floor. And the cost of waiting — on winning moves in the table above, delaying one year typically gives up thousands of dollars of the advantage (we computed that too, in the waiting guide). Both come out of the same simulation: 7 of these 12 routes clear the benchmark; 5don't, including some with visibly higher salaries on offer.
Common questions
Why can a higher salary make me poorer after a move?
Three compounding effects: progressive tax takes a bigger bite of the raise than of your current salary; higher living costs scale your whole budget, not just the raise; and the difference in what you can invest compounds for a decade. A 20% raise into a 35% more expensive city routinely nets out negative.
What is a crossover salary?
The exact offer at which a move flips between losing and winning over the full horizon, holding spending patterns constant. Below it the cheaper city wins on compounding savings; above it the raise outruns the extra costs. It's also the single most useful negotiation number: it tells you the floor that makes a move rational.
How reliable are these numbers?
US salary figures are BLS OEWS metro medians (official statistics); taxes use real federal, state, and FICA brackets; rent comes from Census ACS. Non-US cities mix PolicyEngine and OECD-anchored tax curves with calibrated estimates, labeled as such. Each verdict is a benchmark for a typical mid-senior software engineer — your own inputs can flip it, which is what the free simulator is for.
Methodology & sources
Computed by the MoveWorth simulation engine: progressive income tax (US federal + state + FICA brackets; PolicyEngine-derived UK curves; OECD-anchored effective rates elsewhere), cost-of-living-scaled spending, compounding raises and invested savings. Salary benchmarks: BLS OEWS metro medians for US cities (official), calibrated World Bank-derived estimates elsewhere (labeled). Rent: Census ACS. FX: dated ECB snapshot. Benchmark assumptions unless stated: mid-senior software-engineer offer, 25% savings rate, 3% raises, 7% annual return, 10-year horizon. This is a benchmark, not financial advice.