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The discrepancy of salary based on geography continues to widen. Top of the market salary for any kind of position where I live is around $150k unless you’re a C-level. Thankfully housing also reflects this gap as you can buy for $100-150/sq ft here. This is in Jacksonville, FL.

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Yup. If your priority is a big house, cheaper areas are definitely better. More expensive areas have their own advantages, though: better for paying off loans, saving for retirement (assuming you're okay eventually moving), or for non-CoL affected goods like travel or electronics or media.

I touched on geography in another comment, but another idea to show this data would be to normalize it somehow for region. E.g., divide salary by metro area median income.

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