PlainCost
Home / Compare /

Tuscaloosa vs Albany

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Albany is 0.1% less expensive than Tuscaloosa.

0.1% less expensive

Albany, GA is 0.1% less expensive than Tuscaloosa, AL on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 87.7 vs 87.7). A $100,000 salary in Tuscaloosa buys about the same as $99,940 in Albany; the largest component gap is services.

  • Overall RPP 87.7 (Tuscaloosa) vs 87.7 (Albany)
  • $100k in Tuscaloosa ≈ $99,940 purchasing power in Albany
  • Services drives the gap (+3.9 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair AL:GA 87.7→87.7

PHOTO-FINISH · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BOTH-BELOW · PP-PAR

  • PHOTO-FINISH Photo finish
  • CROSS-STATE AL × GA
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BOTH-BELOW Both below 100
  • 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.

Tuscaloosa
87.7
Cost Index
Albany
87.7
Cost Index

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Tuscaloosa, AL and Albany, GA are a photo finish on overall price level, only 0.1 RPP points apart. A salary conversion is therefore a fine adjustment, not evidence of a fundamentally different cost regime.

Services creates the largest separation: Albany is 3.9 points higher. But services move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

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

Both metros remain below the U.S. benchmark of 100. This comparison chooses between two below-average price levels; “more expensive” here does not mean nationally expensive.

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 Tuscaloosa to $99,940 in Albany, but it is not a personal spending weight.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Tuscaloosa
87.7
Albany
87.7
Goods
Tuscaloosa
96.4
Albany
96.3
Services
Tuscaloosa
84.4
Albany
88.3
Rents
Tuscaloosa
58.2
Albany
54.6

Vertical line = national average (100)

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Tuscaloosa would need to be in Albany for the same purchasing power:

In Tuscaloosa In Albany Difference
$50,000 $49,970 $-30
$75,000 $74,955 $-45
$100,000 $99,940 $-60
$150,000 $149,909 $-91
$ in Tuscaloosa = – in Albany

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (87.7 → 87.7), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

Reverse: Albany → Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa Details Albany Details

Also Compare

vs Brunswick-St. Simons vs Farmington vs Watertown-Fort Drum vs Terre Haute vs Hattiesburg vs St. Cloud

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Albany more expensive than Tuscaloosa?

Albany is 0.1% less expensive than Tuscaloosa. The overall cost index is 87.7 vs 87.7 (national average = 100).

What salary in Albany equals $100K in Tuscaloosa?

A $100,000 salary in Tuscaloosa has the same purchasing power as $99,940 in Albany. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Tuscaloosa and Albany?

Rents in Tuscaloosa are indexed at 58.2 while Albany is at 54.6 (national average = 100). Tuscaloosa has higher rents.

Data sources

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.