New Jersey vs New York
Side-by-side cost of living, income, housing and population. Calculator, charts and shareable results — official Census data.
Keep Your Standard — How Much There?
If you earn — in State A, what do you need in State B?
Lowest rent burden (rent as a share of monthly income) — ACS 2024 5-year. How this is calculated.
New Jersey packs pharmaceuticals, finance, logistics and New York and Philadelphia commuters into the densest state in America. Incomes rank near the top, and schools and services reflect the tax base.
Property taxes are the highest in the nation by most measures, and housing near Manhattan rivals the city itself. The value case is access: top-tier jobs and transit with a suburban base. New Jersey rewards high earners and punishes everyone stretching.
New York concentrates finance, media, tech, healthcare and fashion in a city whose salaries top every chart — and whose rents devour them. Upstate offers a different deal: Buffalo, Rochester and Albany provide stable healthcare and education jobs at far lower costs.
City and state income taxes stack high, and New York City housing is a league of its own. The state works brilliantly for finance and creative professionals riding the escalator, and reasonably upstate for everyone else. Few places reward ambition — or punish budgets — so sharply.
- New Jersey earns more (median $101,050 vs $84,578).
- New York rents cheaper (median $1,576 vs $1,653).
- New York buys cheaper (median home $403,000 vs $427,600).
- New York takes it 2-1 across income, rent and home prices.
- The widest gap is Income: New Jersey at $101,050 vs New York at $84,578.
How to read this comparison
Comparing New Jersey with New York on identical measures drawn from the same federal datasets and the same survey year. Any difference you see below is therefore a genuine difference between the two places, not an artefact of how the two tables were assembled.
On income, New Jersey records a median household income of $103,556 against $85,974 in New York — New Jersey is $17,582 higher, or 1.2 times as much. That income difference is the single biggest driver of how the rest of this comparison turns out.
Housing runs in the opposite direction: a median home in New Jersey is $427,600 against $403,000 in New York. This is exactly why comparing states on income alone, or on house prices alone, both mislead — it is the ratio between the two that determines whether a given salary actually buys a house.
Put as a multiple of annual median income, that is about 4.1 times in New Jersey against 4.7 times in New York. A house at 4.1 times annual income requires a far larger down payment and a longer wait than one at 4.7 times, regardless of the headline salary difference.
Tax narrows the gap in the other direction: a top marginal income tax rate of 10.75% in New Jersey against 10.9% in New York, and a median property tax bill of $9,590 in New Jersey against $6,582 in New York. Because income, sales and property tax are charged on entirely different bases, the state with the lower headline rate is not always the state with the lower total bill.
Read the components rather than a single composite score. An index is always a weighting decision; the individual figures below let you apply your own, and each one links back to the full profile for that state if you want the county detail underneath.
Frequently asked questions
What data does this page show?
Compare cost of living, salaries, housing, rent, taxes and population between New Jersey and New York. Calculator, charts and side-by-side table — official Census data.
New Jersey or New York — which is cheaper?
Compare housing, rent, taxes and pay row by row in the table above.
What matters most when moving?
Housing cost first, then take-home pay after taxes, then rent and daily costs.
How current are these figures?
Each figure carries its own measurement period and last successful refresh. Weekly series (mortgage, gas) show a week date; annual estimates (ACS, HUD) show a survey or program year; daily series (S&P 500, Treasury) show a trading date. A figure is flagged when the source has missed its normal cycle. Full vintage list: <a href="/disclaimer">Disclaimer</a>.
Where do the numbers come from?
Official U.S. government sources only — Census ACS, BLS, HUD, Freddie Mac PMMS, EIA, FRED. LifeIndexData is independent and free: not affiliated with, sponsored by, or compensated by any lender, and advertising never affects our data. Source table: <a href="/about">About</a>.
Is this financial advice?
No. Informational only — see the <a href="/disclaimer">Disclaimer</a>.