This guide turns cost-of-living and migration data into a complete destination budget so you can test the savings before committing to the move.
A lower-cost state can still be expensive for a particular household when wages, housing supply, insurance, taxes, transportation, or child care do not fit.
Lower-cost states generally attracted more domestic movers
Moveline’s 50-state comparison found a moderate relationship between lower 2024 state price levels and stronger domestic inflow in the latest population estimates. The correlation was -0.46: useful evidence that affordability matters, alongside jobs, family, housing, taxes, and lifestyle.
BEA sets the national price level at 100. A state at 90 was about 10% below the national level for the measured basket, while a state at 110 was about 10% above. Your own mix of housing, care, transportation, and services will differ.
South Carolina and North Carolina paired lower prices with strong inflow
South Carolina combined a 93.7 price level with net domestic migration of +12.0 per 1,000 residents. North Carolina combined 94.3 with +7.5 per 1,000. Texas was closer to the national price level at 97.1 and still gained many residents because of its size.
California shows the other side: its 110.7 price level was the country’s highest, and its domestic-migration rate was negative. Those state figures are a starting point; local jobs, housing, and family circumstances decide the household result.
Build the budget from income and the exact home
Compare after-tax income, rent or mortgage, utilities, transportation, health care, child care, insurance, taxes, and regular travel. Use current listings and quotes for the intended neighborhood rather than a statewide average.
Price the one-time move separately. Distance, shipment size, labor, parking, traffic, city loading rules, stairs, elevators, packing, timing, and destination access determine the moving price.
Test the destination before following the ranking
Start with employment, care, schools, housing type, climate tolerance, and support network. Then compare three realistic neighborhoods and calculate how much money remains after recurring costs.
Use the cost-of-living guide, state comparison, and route price guide for three separate questions: everyday expenses, destination fit, and the one-time move.
How we calculated the relationship
We compared the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s 2024 all-items Regional Price Parity for each state with the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 net domestic migration rate. The migration period runs from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025.
Net domestic migration counts people who moved into a state from elsewhere in the United States minus those who moved from that state to another U.S. destination. We expressed that balance per 1,000 residents using:
Net domestic migration rate = net domestic migration ? average of the July 2024 and July 2025 populations ? 1,000
The analysis includes all 50 states. Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico were excluded because the comparison was defined as the 50 states. No state values were missing, and no values were estimated or substituted.
We calculated an unweighted Pearson correlation using the full-precision values for all 50 states. The result was r = ?0.4576, rounded to ?0.46 (N = 50; p = 0.000835). This describes an association between state price levels and migration rates; it does not establish that living costs caused people to move.
