Overall
- Salt Lake City-Murray
- 100.9
- Barnstable Town
- 98.4
Diff -2.5 RPP
Salt Lake City-Murray vs Barnstable Town
Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Barnstable Town is 2.5% less expensive than Salt Lake City-Murray.
2.5% less expensive
Barnstable Town, MA is 2.5% less expensive than Salt Lake City-Murray, UT on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 98.4 vs 100.9). A $100,000 salary in Salt Lake City-Murray buys about the same as $97,505 in Barnstable Town; the largest component gap is services.
- Overall RPP 100.9 (Salt Lake City-Murray) vs 98.4 (Barnstable Town)
- $100k in Salt Lake City-Murray ≈ $97,505 purchasing power in Barnstable Town
- Services drives the gap (+79.4 RPP points)
RPP parity plate
Pair UT:MA 100.9→98.4
TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-PAR
- TIER-NEAR Near tier
- CROSS-STATE UT × MA
- SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
- BENCH-CROSS Benchmark cross
- PP-PAR PP near-par
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
Goods
- Barnstable Town
- 97.0
Diff +0.6 RPP
Services
- Barnstable Town
- 158.4
Diff +79.4 RPP
Rents
- Salt Lake City-Murray
- 123.3
- Barnstable Town
- 90.0
Diff -33.3 RPP
| Category | Salt Lake City-Murray | Barnstable Town | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 100.9 | 98.4 | -2.5 |
| Goods | 96.4 | 97.0 | +0.6 |
| Services | 79.0 | 158.4 | +79.4 |
| Rents | 123.3 | 90.0 | -33.3 |
Visual Comparison
Overall
Salt Lake City-Murray 100.9
Barnstable Town 98.4
Goods
Salt Lake City-Murray 96.4
Barnstable Town 97.0
Services
Salt Lake City-Murray 79.0
Barnstable Town 158.4
Rents
Salt Lake City-Murray 123.3
Barnstable Town 90.0
Vertical line = national average (100)
What This Comparison Actually Tells You
Services creates the largest separation: Barnstable Town is 79.4 points higher. But services and goods move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.
Barnstable Town, MA is 2.5% less expensive than Salt Lake City-Murray, UT, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 2.5-point overall gap.
This route crosses the national benchmark: Salt Lake City-Murray is above 100 while Barnstable Town 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 service-heavy household, test childcare, health, and other locally supplied costs before relying on rent alone. The BEA ratio converts $100,000 in Salt Lake City-Murray to $97,505 in Barnstable Town, but it is not a personal spending weight.
Salt Lake City-Murray
100.9
Cost Index
Barnstable Town
98.4
Cost Index
Salary Equivalents
What a salary in Salt Lake City-Murray would need to be in Barnstable Town for the same purchasing power:
| In Salt Lake City-Murray | In Barnstable Town | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $48,752 | $-1,248 |
| $75,000 | $73,128 | $-1,872 |
| $100,000 | $97,505 | $-2,495 |
| $150,000 | $146,257 | $-3,743 |
$ in Salt Lake City-Murray = in Barnstable Town
Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (100.9 → 98.4), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.
How the Price Gap Changed
Salt Lake City-Murray and Barnstable Town share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 4.3 to 2.5 RPP points. Salt Lake City-Murray remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.
Rents changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 27.5 points between the first and latest shared releases (5.8 to 33.3 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.
| Release Year | Salt Lake City-Murray RPP | Barnstable Town RPP | Relative Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 98.5 | 102.8 | 4.3 points Barnstable Town higher |
| 2012 | 102.2 | 100.9 | 1.2 points Salt Lake City-Murray higher |
| 2016 | 98.3 | 105.8 | 7.5 points Barnstable Town higher |
| 2020 | 97.3 | 101.3 | 4.0 points Barnstable Town higher |
| 2024 | 100.9 | 98.4 | 2.5 points Salt Lake City-Murray 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 Barnstable Town more expensive than Salt Lake City-Murray?
Barnstable Town is 2.5% less expensive than Salt Lake City-Murray. The overall cost index is 98.4 vs 100.9 (national average = 100).
What salary in Barnstable Town equals $100K in Salt Lake City-Murray?
A $100,000 salary in Salt Lake City-Murray has the same purchasing power as $97,505 in Barnstable Town. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.
How do rents compare between Salt Lake City-Murray and Barnstable Town?
Rents in Salt Lake City-Murray are indexed at 123.3 while Barnstable Town is at 90.0 (national average = 100). Salt Lake City-Murray has higher rents.
Data sources
- BEA Regional Price Parities (RPP), the cost-of-living indices shown on this page
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), gross-rent observations behind the rents component
- BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI), goods and services price relatives
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), labor-driven services component
- HUD Fair Market Rents (FMR), 40th-percentile rent cross-reference
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.