They do account for that. Normally, they assume you are a person with average desires. The more complicated cost of living calculators will let you enter in your actual expenses to produce a personalized adjustment.

If you aren't weird, the cost of living calculators work fine.

I mentioned in another comment that I have a coworker who moved from San Francisco. He now has an 11-acre lot with sheep, goats, and chickens. He can shoot an AR-15 in his yard. OK, he's weird. Imagine the cost of living for him in San Francisco. Step 1 is to find 5 acres. Step 2 is to lobby the state legislature...? Even if we downgrade to a California-compliant gun, that 11 acres seems likely to cost roughly $366,666,666.

Wow. For him, it looks like San Francisco is nearly 1000 times more expensive. Thousands turn into millions.

He does commute a half hour. Perhaps there is a city a half hour away from San Francisco where he could get his kind of home for "only" a hundred million dollars.

I disagree with the other comment; the COL calculators must NOT be taken as face value. Just like you pointed out the rent and state taxes are perhaps the biggest increase in expense. Groceries are more expensive but NOT by 150%; especially if you shopped at higher end Grocery stores (like Whole Foods v/s Walmart). Other major things, like furniture, appliances, electronics are more or less the same (except there is a CA recycling fee for electronics, but it isn't that much).

The financial upside is so much that its just ridiculous. The comp ceiling does not exist in SFBA or is substantially higher than anywhere else in the US. From a purely financial success, you should absolutely seriously consider moving to SFBA.

Sure but every city is under 100K, which makes me agree that something is seriously off -- adjustment or no.

And they're still way off. The only reason Detroit's number is so high is because they're counting the $1k condemned houses for sale, all over the city, that nobody wants to move into.