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Chicago
#31 of 122
North America

Chicago

IL, United States

Salary & Cost of Living

View purchasing power ranking

How do salaries and expenses in Chicago compare to Seattle?

Purchasing Power Comparison

An engineer in Chicago is 38% worse off vs in Seattle

This shows how far a software engineer's salary goes in Chicago compared to Seattle, taking into account both salary differences and cost of living.

Median Salary
$140,000
-$104,000 (-43%) vs Seattle
Based on 1577 data points from levels.fyi
Net Salary
$93,100
-$80,140 (-46%) vs Seattle
Tax Rate: 34%
Cost of Living
14% cheaper than Seattle
View detailed cost breakdown on Numbeo

Weather

View weather ranking

How does the weather in Chicago compare to Seattle?

Seattle has better overall weather

4.2/10(vs 5.4/10 in Seattle)

Overall weather score based on temperature, sunshine, precipitation, and humidity. Learn how it's calculated

Average High
15°C(vs 16°C in Seattle)
Average Low
8°C(same as Seattle)
Sunshine Hours
2,508h/yr+339h/yr(+16%)
Average High in hottest month
28°C(vs 25°C in Seattle)
Average Low in coldest month
-5°C(vs 3°C in Seattle)
Rainy Days
91/yr-36/yr(-28%)
Muggy Days
42/yr+42/yr(+Infinity%)
Cloud Cover
47%(vs 55% in Seattle)

Quality of Life

Safety ranking•Pollution ranking

How does quality of life in Chicago compare to Seattle?

Housing Affordability

View affordability ranking

How affordable is housing for a software engineer in Chicago compared to Seattle?

Avg. Property Price
$2,966 / m²
55% cheaper than Seattle
View detailed property prices on Numbeo
SWE Affordability
2.5 years
0.5 years quicker than Seattle

Community & Events

View cities with most events
Events listed on lu.ma, a popular Meetup alternative in tech circles, can indicate local community engagement.
Chicago has around 12 Luma events listed.

That's 40% fewer events than Seattle.

Salary Converter

Enter your annual gross salary (before taxes) to see what you would need to earn in Chicago to maintain the same standard of living.

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