Guide Rankings Economy Updated May 7, 2026

Real Value of $100 by State

Purchasing power map showing the real value of money by state in the U.S. — Mississippi leads at $116 per $100, Hawaii trails at $88

Real Value of $100 by State

Ranking - Economy

Quick Answer

Real Value of $100 by State

  1. 1

    Purchasing power by state ranges from $116.01 in Mississippi to $88.13 in Hawaii. That means $100 stretches about 28 dollars further in Mississippi than in Hawaii.

  2. 2

    The top 10 are mostly Southern and Plains states, all above $111. The bottom five are Hawaii, New York, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

Map

Purchasing Power Map: Real Value of $100 by State

value of $100
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The South and Plains states are the deepest green — your dollar goes furthest there. The coasts, particularly Hawaii, California, New York, and New Jersey, are the deepest red, where $100 buys significantly less than it would at the national average price level.
Purchasing Power Map: Real Value of $100 by State
Rank State value of $100
1 Mississippi 116
2 Alabama 114.6
3 Oklahoma 113.7
4 Arkansas 113.4
5 Kansas 113.1
6 West Virginia 112.7
7 Missouri 112.2
8 Iowa 111.9
9 Tennessee 111.3
10 South Dakota 111.3
11 Nebraska 111.2
12 Georgia 111
13 North Dakota 110.7
14 Indiana 110.7
15 Michigan 110.6
16 Kentucky 110.4
17 Louisiana 110.2
18 Ohio 109.9
19 South Carolina 109.6
20 Texas 109.2
21 North Carolina 109
22 Wisconsin 108.9
23 Idaho 107.4
24 Minnesota 107.3
25 Montana 107.2
26 New Mexico 106.5
27 Florida 106.5
28 Wyoming 106.3
29 Virginia 104.8
30 Pennsylvania 104.8
31 Nevada 104.5
32 Illinois 104.3
33 Arizona 104
34 Maine 103.8
35 Utah 103.6
36 Delaware 103.2
37 Colorado 102.5
38 Washington 100.9
39 Oregon 100.9
40 Rhode Island 100.8
41 Connecticut 99.03
42 New Hampshire 98.82
43 Vermont 97.83
44 Alaska 97.79
45 Maryland 96.55
46 Massachusetts 95.55
47 New Jersey 93.45
48 California 92.31
49 New York 88.3
50 Hawaii 88.13

The South and Plains states are the deepest green — your dollar goes furthest there. The coasts, particularly Hawaii, California, New York, and New Jersey, are the deepest red, where $100 buys significantly less than it would at the national average price level.

Real Value of $100 by State Table

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Print-ready table — Real Value of $100 by State

Why Southern States Dominate the Top 10

Homes along Pinehurst Street in Jackson, Mississippi
Pinehurst Street sits in Jackson, Mississippi's capital and largest city, where older residential neighborhoods shape the housing costs behind statewide price data.

Mississippi's price index of 86.2 is the lowest in the country, meaning local prices run nearly 14 percent below the U.S. average. Housing is the main driver: housing accounts for roughly 40 percent of the BEA price calculation, and Mississippi's housing costs are among the lowest in the country. Food, transportation, and services also cost less, compounding the advantage across every spending category.

The top 17 states on this list — every state where $100 buys more than $110 — form an almost unbroken band from the Gulf Coast through the Plains. The engine behind all of them is housing: home prices and rents in these states run well below the national average, and since housing accounts for roughly 40 percent of the BEA price calculation, cheap real estate compresses the entire state RPP. Lower wages in these labor markets pull food, services, and retail prices down behind it. See also the most common job by state for how occupation mix correlates with this map.

This doesn't mean these states are uniformly prosperous. Mississippi leads on purchasing power but ranks near the bottom on median household income in absolute dollar terms. The purchasing power advantage partly compensates for lower nominal earnings — which is the point of the metric. Comparing incomes across state lines without adjusting for price levels produces a distorted picture of living standards.

Hawaii and New York: Where $100 Buys the Least

Container ship entering Honolulu Harbor with cranes and shoreline behind it
A container ship enters Honolulu Harbor, the state's main commercial port and a key landing point for Matson and other Pacific freight routes.

Hawaii's price index of 113.5 is the highest in the nation, reflecting a simple geographic reality: almost everything the state consumes must be shipped across 2,400 miles of Pacific Ocean. The Jones Act requires that goods moving between U.S. ports travel on American-flagged ships, which limits competition and raises shipping costs for every imported item — fuel, food, building materials, and consumer goods alike. Hawaii's housing market adds another layer: land is scarce, zoning is constrained, and demand from tourism and remote workers has pushed home prices above those of nearly every mainland city.

New York's RPP of 113.2 reflects New York City's gravitational pull on the entire state's price data. Manhattan rents are among the highest in the world; the outer boroughs and upstate New York are far cheaper, but the metro area's weight in the statewide average drags the whole state toward the bottom of this ranking. A worker earning $100,000 in New York City has roughly the same real purchasing power as someone earning $76,000 in Mississippi — the ratio of their RPP values, 88.30 to 116.01.

California (RPP 108.3), New Jersey (107.0), and Massachusetts (104.6) round out the bottom five. Each has at least one metro — Los Angeles, Newark, Boston — where housing demand consistently outpaces supply and wages, while above average, never catch up to what landlords charge. For a closer look at how population concentration shapes these prices, compare the states by population density map.

The Sun Belt Split: Texas at $109, Florida at $106

Residential neighborhood in North Dallas near LBJ Freeway
A 1970s EPA/NARA view of North Dallas near LBJ Freeway captures the low-density suburban pattern that helped Texas metros expand outward for decades.

The Sun Belt states reveal a divide that the national narrative about migration and growth tends to flatten. Texas sits at rank 20 with a value of $109.17 — firmly above average, benefiting from no income tax, a large and competitive labor market, and inland metros like Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio where land is plentiful and housing has historically been cheap. Florida ranks 27th at $106.45, above the national average but notably lower than Texas, pulled down by Miami's coastal real estate market and the retirement-driven demand along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Both states saw rapid in-migration after 2020, and the pressure shows. Texas's RPP has risen meaningfully since 2015 as Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth absorbed hundreds of thousands of new residents; Florida's coastal markets now price out many of the workers the service and hospitality sectors need. The purchasing power advantage that made both states magnets for relocators is narrowing, even as the nominal tax advantage remains. For context on why people moved, the states by population ranking shows just how much the Sun Belt has grown.

States in the Mountain West — Idaho (23rd, $107.39), Montana (25th, $107.15), Wyoming (28th, $106.35) — show above-average purchasing power built on low population density and historically modest real estate markets. Idaho's purchasing power advantage is eroding in the Boise metro as in-migration drives up housing costs; rural Montana and Wyoming remain well below national price levels.

What Regional Price Parity Measures and What It Doesn't

The Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes Regional Price Parities annually using price data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, the American Community Survey (for housing), and the Inter-Area Price Level Comparisons program. The index covers all components of personal consumption: housing, food at home, food away from home, transportation, healthcare, recreation, education, and other goods and services. Housing typically makes up around 40 percent of the RPP calculation, which is why states with tight real estate markets rank consistently at the bottom of this list.

RPP is not a cost-of-living index in the conventional sense. A cost-of-living index measures how prices change over time in one location; RPP measures how price levels compare across locations at one point in time. The BEA also publishes Real Personal Income by state — income adjusted for RPP — which is the most accurate way to compare living standards across state lines. By that measure, Mississippi and other high-RPP states rank considerably higher than their nominal income figures suggest, while New York and California rank lower.

One important limitation: RPP is a statewide average. Within a state, prices vary enormously between metro areas and rural counties. Connecticut's statewide RPP of 101.0 masks the difference between Fairfield County (comparable to Manhattan) and rural Windham County. Texas at 91.6 includes both Austin's frothy real estate market and the far cheaper Panhandle. Use the state figures as a starting point, not a final answer. See BEA's full methodology for metro-level data.

Quick Answers

What state has the best purchasing power for $100?
Mississippi has the highest purchasing power in the United States. According to BEA 2022 Regional Price Parity data, $100 in national purchasing power is worth $116.01 in Mississippi, reflecting a price level about 14 percent below the national average. Alabama ($114.62), Oklahoma ($113.65), Arkansas ($113.40), and Kansas ($113.09) round out the top five.
What is the value of 100 dollars by state?
The real value of 100 dollars ranges from $116.01 in Mississippi to $88.13 in Hawaii. The figure is calculated from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parity index, which compares each state's price level to the national average. A state with an RPP of 90 has prices 10 percent below average, so $100 in national purchasing power buys $111.11 there.
Why does $100 go so far in Southern states?
Southern states consistently rank at the top of the purchasing power list because housing, food, and services cost significantly less than the national average. Lower population density reduces land costs, which drives down rents and home prices — the single largest component of any consumer price measure. Labor markets in these states also feature lower nominal wages, which feeds through into lower prices for locally produced goods and services.
Why is Hawaii the most expensive state for purchasing power?
Hawaii's price level is the highest in the nation (RPP: 113.5) because nearly all goods must be shipped across 2,400 miles of Pacific Ocean from the mainland. The Jones Act requires that mainland-to-Hawaii cargo travel on American-flagged ships, which limits competition and raises shipping costs for fuel, food, building materials, and consumer goods. Scarce land and high tourism demand compound the effect on housing, pushing the state's overall price level well above any mainland state.
What does Regional Price Parity (RPP) mean?
Regional Price Parity (RPP) is a measure published annually by the Bureau of Economic Analysis comparing each state's price level to the national average, indexed at 100. A state with an RPP of 86 has prices 14 percent below the U.S. average; an RPP of 113 means prices are 13 percent above average. The purchasing power of $100 in any state equals 10,000 divided by that state's RPP.
Does higher purchasing power mean a better quality of life?
Not necessarily. States with the highest purchasing power often have the lowest nominal incomes, so the real advantage may be smaller than the index suggests. Mississippi leads on purchasing power but ranks near the bottom on median household income, educational attainment, and health outcomes. Purchasing power is one lens — it tells you how far your dollars stretch, not how many dollars you are likely to earn.
Why is New York so low in purchasing power despite high salaries?
New York's RPP of 113.2 is the second-highest in the nation, driven primarily by New York City's housing costs, which inflate the statewide average. Even with above-average wages, New Yorkers spend a much higher share of income on rent and basic goods. In purchasing power terms, $100,000 in New York has the same real value as roughly $76,000 in Mississippi — the direct ratio of their RPP values (88.30 ÷ 116.01).
How does purchasing power by state affect remote workers?
Remote workers who earn a coastal salary while living in a high-purchasing-power state capture the full spread. A software engineer earning a Bay Area wage and spending in Kansas gets $113.09 worth of local purchasing power for every $100 of national average spending — Kansas's RPP is 88.4, meaning prices are nearly 12 percent below the national average. This dynamic drove significant internal migration after 2020 into low-RPP states across the South and Mountain West, until rising housing demand in those destinations began compressing the advantage.

Methodology

Figures use 2022 BEA Regional Price Parities. The value of $100 is calculated as 10,000 divided by each state's RPP.

Sources

Information is cross-referenced with official state archives.
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