Fond du Lac vs Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is 12.5% more expensive than Fond du Lac.

12.5% more expensive

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX is 12.5% more expensive than Fond du Lac, WI on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 103.1 vs 91.6). A $100,000 salary in Fond du Lac buys about the same as $112,491 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington; the largest component gap is rents.

  • Overall RPP 91.6 (Fond du Lac) vs 103.1 (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
  • $100k in Fond du Lac ≈ $112,491 purchasing power in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
  • Rents drives the gap (+50.6 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair WI:TX 91.6→103.1

TIER-GAP · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-SHIFT

  • TIER-GAP Clear tier gap
  • CROSS-STATE WI × TX
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BENCH-CROSS Benchmark cross
  • PP-SHIFT PP shift

Instrument codes from this pair's BEA Regional Price Parities (overall · goods · services · rents · national benchmark 100 · purchasing-power conversion), not a ranking or recommendation.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Fond du Lac
91.6
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Goods
Fond du Lac
93.8
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
102.8
Services
Fond du Lac
91.1
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
90.7
Rents
Fond du Lac
67.3
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
117.9

Vertical line = national average (100)

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Rents creates the largest separation: Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is 50.6 points higher. But services move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Fond du Lac, WI and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX sit in clearly different price tiers, separated by 11.4 RPP points. At this distance, treating the same nominal salary as equivalent would materially change purchasing power.

This route crosses the national benchmark: Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is above 100 while Fond du Lac is below it. That makes the move a change of price regime, not merely a rank swap.

Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.

For a housing-sensitive move, validate the rent gap first: HUD Fair Market Rent and the actual unit size can overturn what the blended index implies. On the BEA ratio alone, $100,000 in Fond du Lac corresponds to $112,491 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington.

Fond du Lac
91.6
Cost Index
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
103.1
Cost Index

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Fond du Lac would need to be in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington for the same purchasing power:

In Fond du Lac In Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Difference
$50,000 $56,245 +$6,245
$75,000 $84,368 +$9,368
$100,000 $112,491 +$12,491
$150,000 $168,736 +$18,736
$ in Fond du Lac = in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (91.6 → 103.1), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

How the Price Gap Changed

Fond du Lac and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 17.9 to 11.4 RPP points. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Services changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 19.0 points between the first and latest shared releases (18.6 to 0.4 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Fond du Lac RPP Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington RPP Relative Gap
2008 83.4 101.4 17.9 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2012 91.0 100.8 9.8 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2016 88.2 98.0 9.9 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2020 91.2 104.5 13.3 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher
2024 91.6 103.1 11.4 points Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington higher

Annual BEA Regional Price Parity releases; a higher index means a higher price level relative to the national average of 100. Selected years shown from the full shared series.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington more expensive than Fond du Lac?

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is 12.5% more expensive than Fond du Lac. The overall cost index is 103.1 vs 91.6 (national average = 100).

What salary in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington equals $100K in Fond du Lac?

A $100,000 salary in Fond du Lac has the same purchasing power as $112,491 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Fond du Lac and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington?

Rents in Fond du Lac are indexed at 67.3 while Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is at 117.9 (national average = 100). Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has higher rents.

Data sourced from official public datasets, Regional Price Parities (2024), index where national average = 100. Retrieved and formatted by PlainCost. See our methodology for details.

Every figure on PlainCost is rendered directly from BEA Regional Price Parity source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-11. Rankings measure the published cost-of-living index only; we don't recommend where to live or rate any metro's quality of life.