and since Texas has NO personal income tax, what does THAT do to the gap since most of the non right to work states have one... and since Texas has NO personal income tax, what does THAT do to the gap since most of the non right to work states have one...Your on he right track, but the ? is not just pretax pay vs post tax income. Its purchasing power. 250K in NYC is way different then West VA, Tx, or AZ and AK. Look at internal USA migration trends, tells you everything you need to know.