The regional "cost of living" is things like housing, food, taxes, and other things like that. Aside from taxes and housing (and housing is effectively an optional expense at this income level, Pujols certainly could afford to live using .1% of his income on housing there), they're not things that factor into the absolute income level of people making $25 million. IOW, Pujols isn't spending $2.2 million on food in STL and $2.8 million in Anaheim. He also isn't going to spend $6 million or whatever the average percentage would be on his mortgage+property taxes. Cost of living is a sort of a floor. Relevant for people with low (but not too low), middle, and mid-high incomes, but just meaningless for people making 8 figures.