CI TacoIndexAffordability, in tacos
A consumer affordability index

How many tacos does your time buy?

TacoIndex.com ranks 33 U.S. cities by taco affordability — the number of tacos one hour of local work buys, using BLS median hourly wages and per-city taco prices.

See the rankings Read the methodology
33Cities
$2.77National avg taco price
$25.52National median hourly wage
9.3National avg tacos / hour

Most affordable cities

Tacos per hour of work at the local median wage. Higher is more affordable.

1Minneapolis, MN 11.1tacos / hour 2Milwaukee, WI 10.9tacos / hour 3Austin, TX 10.5tacos / hour 4Dallas, TX 10.5tacos / hour 5Washington, DC 10.5tacos / hour 6Houston, TX 10.3tacos / hour

Least affordable cities

Fewer tacos per hour at the local median wage.

33New York City, NY 7.1tacos / hour 32Los Angeles, CA 7.3tacos / hour 31Jacksonville, FL 7.5tacos / hour 30Philadelphia, PA 8.1tacos / hour 29Portland, OR 8.3tacos / hour 28Las Vegas, NV 8.3tacos / hour

What this measures

TacoIndex computes taco affordability as local median hourly wage divided by the average price of a taco in that city. A higher number means an hour of local work buys more tacos.

This is the same idea as the Big Mac Index — a single, recognizable consumer good used as a benchmark for purchasing power — but applied across U.S. metros at the city level rather than across countries.

How the numbers are built

Wages come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2024), using the median hourly wage for all occupations at the MSA level.

Taco prices are an average of a representative fast-casual taqueria price and the local Taco Bell crunchy taco price, anchored on per-city research and spot-verified against major-metro chain menus.

Full methodology →

Scope note. TacoIndex.com is an independent affordability research project, not an inflation gauge or commercial price feed. Taco prices vary by neighborhood, tortilla, and protein; the per-city values published here are representative midpoints, not market quotations. See the methodology for limitations and per-city caveats.