How does your purchasing power actually change? Here's the real breakdown — after taxes, after cost of living.
What the numbers mean
A $75,000 salary in Chicago gives you the equivalent of $60,254 in purchasing power after accounting for state income taxes (5.2%) and the local cost of living. The same salary in Denver gives you $56,457 — a difference of -6%.
Rent in Denver (around $1,800/month) is actually higher than you might expect — only $100/month less than Chicago. Housing cost alone doesn't tell the full story.
These numbers use a cost-of-living index where 100 = national average. Chicago's index of 118 means it costs 118% of the national average to maintain the same lifestyle. Denver's is 127.
The Denver move that surprises people
Most people considering a Chicago-to-Denver move are pricing it like a 2015 decision. The Denver of 2015 — affordable housing, lower cost of living than Chicago, mild summers, mountains an hour away — was a famously good deal. The Denver of 2025 is a different city. The math above shows Denver as more expensive than Chicago overall, by about 6%, and that result trips a lot of people up.
Housing is the main culprit. Median rent for a 1-bedroom in Denver runs around $1,750–$1,900, which is higher than most Chicago neighborhoods outside of Lincoln Park, the West Loop, and the Gold Coast. Buying is worse: median home prices in metro Denver are above $570,000, and the inventory is tight. Chicago's median home price sits closer to $360,000, with a much larger supply of housing in solid neighborhoods. If you're a renter eyeing Denver because you remember it being cheap, the first few apartment listings will reorient you fast.
Colorado's income tax is also higher than people expect. Colorado has a flat 4.4% income tax, which is real but lower than Illinois's 4.95%. So you do save a small amount on income tax — maybe $400 a year on a $75k salary — but it's a much smaller win than people moving to a no-income-tax state experience. Property taxes in Colorado are low (around 0.5% effective, one of the lowest rates in the country), but again, that only matters if you own.
Where Denver wins is hard to quantify in dollars. The mountain access is real and meaningful if you actually use it. People who ski, hike seriously, mountain bike, or climb get a quality-of-life upgrade that doesn't fit on a spreadsheet. Sunshine is the other one — Denver gets around 245 sunny days a year versus Chicago's 189, and the difference shows up in February when you've been gray-skied for two months. The summers are dry and mild instead of humid, and the winters are colder on paper but considerably more bearable because the sun is out and the snow doesn't slush.
Altitude is a real adjustment. Denver sits at 5,280 feet. The first month is genuinely uncomfortable for most flatlanders — fatigue, headaches, dehydration, weird sleep. It clears up. But it's worth knowing that "moving to Denver" includes a six-week physiological adjustment that shows up nowhere in any cost-of-living calculator.
Who actually wins financially: remote workers who keep their Chicago salary. If your employer doesn't adjust pay for location and you're earning $90k+ at home, the move can pencil out because you're absorbing the higher cost of living with the same paycheck. Local Denver salaries are competitive with Chicago in tech and professional services but tend to be 5–10% lower in fields like marketing, nonprofit, and education.
Who tends to regret it: people who move for the lifestyle but don't actually use the mountains. The lifestyle premium of Denver is real if you ski every weekend in winter and hike every weekend in summer. If you stay in your apartment most weekends, you're paying Denver prices for a Chicago-quality experience without Chicago's restaurant density and cultural scene. Denver has a perfectly good restaurant scene; it's not Chicago's.
If the math came back negative for you above, run it again with your actual salary and job type. Denver's purchasing-power gap with Chicago is smaller for high earners and bigger for people in lower-paying fields, because rent eats a larger share of your paycheck at lower incomes.
Run your actual numbers
The comparison above uses $75,000 as a baseline. Your real result depends on your salary, your job type, and whether your employer adjusts pay for location. The tool below lets you enter your specific situation.