Redding vs Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is 3% more expensive than Redding.

3% more expensive

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA is 3% more expensive than Redding, CA on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 103.7 vs 100.7). A $100,000 salary in Redding buys about the same as $102,966 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater; the largest component gap is services.

  • Overall RPP 100.7 (Redding) vs 103.7 (Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater)
  • $100k in Redding ≈ $102,966 purchasing power in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
  • Services drives the gap (-66.0 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair CA:WA 100.7→103.7

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

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE CA × WA
  • 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
Redding
100.7
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
103.7
Goods
Redding
105.2
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
105.0
Services
Redding
157.7
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
91.7
Rents
Redding
89.4
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
116.7

Vertical line = national average (100)

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Services creates the largest separation: Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is 66.0 points lower. But services and goods move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA is 3% more expensive than Redding, CA, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 3.0-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 Redding to $102,966 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, but it is not a personal spending weight.

Redding
100.7
Cost Index
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
103.7
Cost Index

Salary Equivalents

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

In Redding In Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater Difference
$50,000 $51,483 +$1,483
$75,000 $77,224 +$2,224
$100,000 $102,966 +$2,966
$150,000 $154,449 +$4,449
$ in Redding = in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (100.7 → 103.7), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

How the Price Gap Changed

Redding and Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 8.0 to 3.0 RPP points. Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Services changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 45.6 points between the first and latest shared releases (20.4 to 66.0 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Redding RPP Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater RPP Relative Gap
2008 97.3 105.4 8.0 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2012 102.3 101.3 1.0 points Redding higher
2016 96.4 106.0 9.6 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2020 99.6 101.9 2.3 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2024 100.7 103.7 3.0 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 Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater more expensive than Redding?

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is 3% more expensive than Redding. The overall cost index is 103.7 vs 100.7 (national average = 100).

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

A $100,000 salary in Redding has the same purchasing power as $102,966 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

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

Rents in Redding are indexed at 89.4 while Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is at 116.7 (national average = 100). Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater 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.