For reference on the cost side, the median home in San Francisco is $1.16M[1] (USD). The mean home in Toronto is $921K[2] (CAD; about $674K USD). Median figures are, unfortunately, not publicly provided in Canada, but given the nature of home valuations (especially in Toronto where you can find multi-million dollar mansions), a comparable amount is presumably quite a bit lower than that.

[1] https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/

[2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/real-estate-toronto-tr...

San Francisco Metro is listed there, median of $843,200:

https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-metro-ca_r395057/home-v...

Choosing the comparison probably can't be done objectively, but the core of Toronto is about 4 times larger (area) than the city of San Francisco.

Most my friends in SF pay between $2.5-4k USD (3.4k-5.46k CAD) per month for their apartments [tell me if i'm wrong?]. I personally rent out two 1BR upper-scale apartments in downtown Toronto [one loft space for $1.9k CAD ($1.39k USD) and the other a 1BR+Den for $2.275k CAD ($1.66k USD)].

When it comes to lifestyle, money generally goes way further in Toronto than it does in SF; you're getting paid less for a reason.

Oh also...enjoy your free healthcare [PS i'm Australian, so don't go thinking I'm a crazy maple syrup drinking Canadian who just loves this place because i was born here]

As a Torontonian transplant living in NYC: the rent is higher, but the same or smaller % of a much larger figure can still get you ahead by _quite_ a bit. You are simply wrong about the cost of living explaining the salary difference. It is very, very, very good to be working here and not in Toronto.

New York certainly Trumps (thought this needed some comic relief) Toronto in many ways, but I am guessing you're probably making a claim based on a salary that I suspect isn't as common as you would like it to be. People I previously worked with who did the exact same thing regularly talk about how expensive it is and that they are struggling to get by. I've had the same option on the table and despite my disinterest living in the US right now, I've never been able to make the math work. Taxes are not that low, especially when you add back healthcare, and it's so expensive to live the same quality of life that I might be able to short term improve my cash flow, but if I sacrifice I can also do that here?!

I'm from Toronto, good senior engineers that aren't working in a sweat shop make $100k CAD or more, you can rent a nice apartment downtown for $2k per month.

I would say, maybe it's because I'm working in a sweatshop then, but I make barely over half of that in a mid-level/senior dev position in operations in a rather large digital media company. I've heard stories of positions that offer more but I don't think they're as plentiful as its made out to be... (frankly they outsource a lot of dev work and in spite of the larger trend in digital media, want to stay far away from much in-house dev).

maybe I should just be looking for new work.

There's also the emotional expense involved, but that's everywhere. Can't say I'd be willing to go in for $100k CAD doing DB or web work at say X-Syngery Unicorp Inc who might supply toilet paper dispensers to all junior-level and public restrooms in Suchacorp's east tower.

That one's on me, though.

100k in Toronto is 63k USD. How much of that do you get to keep after taxes? The H1B folks working in my office from India earn around 65k USD.

63k USD/100k CAD for a good senior engineer is a very poor salary in the US. Typically they make 2-3 times that in TX.

Actually C$100k is (roughly) US$73k

Sorry for the nit, but is that $2k CAD?

Yes. And you can get a decent studio for less actually.