Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater vs Ogden

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Ogden is 3.2% less expensive than Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater.

3.2% less expensive

Ogden, UT is 3.2% less expensive than Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 100.3 vs 103.7). A $100,000 salary in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater buys about the same as $96,797 in Ogden; the largest component gap is services.

  • Overall RPP 103.7 (Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater) vs 100.3 (Ogden)
  • $100k in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater ≈ $96,797 purchasing power in Ogden
  • Services drives the gap (-12.9 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair WA:UT 103.7→100.3

TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BOTH-ABOVE · PP-SHIFT

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE WA × UT
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BOTH-ABOVE Both above 100
  • 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
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
103.7
Ogden
100.3
Goods
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
105.0
Ogden
96.4
Services
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
91.7
Ogden
78.8
Rents
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
116.7
Ogden
117.9

Vertical line = national average (100)

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Services creates the largest separation: Ogden is 12.9 points lower. But rents move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Ogden, UT is 3.2% less expensive than Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 3.3-point overall gap.

Both metros exceed the U.S. benchmark of 100. The choice is between two national premiums, so local wages need to clear the higher baseline in either market.

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

For a service-heavy household, test childcare, health, and other locally supplied costs before relying on rent alone. The BEA ratio converts $100,000 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater to $96,797 in Ogden, but it is not a personal spending weight.

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
103.7
Cost Index
Ogden
100.3
Cost Index

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater would need to be in Ogden for the same purchasing power:

In Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater In Ogden Difference
$50,000 $48,398 $-1,602
$75,000 $72,597 $-2,403
$100,000 $96,797 $-3,203
$150,000 $145,195 $-4,805
$ in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater = in Ogden

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (103.7 → 100.3), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

How the Price Gap Changed

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater and Ogden share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 10.3 to 3.3 RPP points. Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Rents changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 22.1 points between the first and latest shared releases (20.9 to 1.2 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater RPP Ogden RPP Relative Gap
2008 105.4 95.0 10.3 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2012 101.3 100.9 0.4 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2016 106.0 96.3 9.8 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2020 101.9 95.8 6.1 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2024 103.7 100.3 3.3 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater 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 Ogden more expensive than Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater?

Ogden is 3.2% less expensive than Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater. The overall cost index is 100.3 vs 103.7 (national average = 100).

What salary in Ogden equals $100K in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater?

A $100,000 salary in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater has the same purchasing power as $96,797 in Ogden. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater and Ogden?

Rents in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater are indexed at 116.7 while Ogden is at 117.9 (national average = 100). Ogden 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.