Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Bakersfield's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Bakersfield?
Your $100,000 in Bakersfield has the same purchasing power as $97,733 in the average US city. You'd need $2,267 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Bakersfield's cost index of 102, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Bakersfield? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly housing is the bargain and you can walk to most of what you need, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Median rent is about $1,283/mo, and the housing sub-index lands at 91 (US avg = 100) in Bakersfield. That's the line item people from coastal metros usually find hardest to believe — and the one that frees up budget for everything else.
With a citywide Walk Score of 68/100, Bakersfield sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Average commute time in Bakersfield runs around 24 minutes one-way — short enough that it doesn't restructure your day. Compared to the 45-plus-minute commutes that are normal in major metros, the difference adds up to a real lifestyle gap.
Reasons are pulled from Bakersfield's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 41°F, Bakersfield sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Bakersfield sit around 41°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Bakersfield's summer averages around 96°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 9. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 9 or colder should survive a typical winter in Bakersfield. (The estimate is derived from our winter-temperature data; the official USDA map uses station-level annual minimums and may differ by half a zone.)
Around 384 feet (117 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Bakersfield's altitude shows up in daily life.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Bakersfield's ~4,551 per 100,000 reflects a citywide aggregate. Some neighborhoods here are notably safer than the average; others are notably worse. Worth looking at the specific area, not the city-level number.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Bakersfield's index of 102 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
In parts, yes. With a citywide Walk Score of 68/100, Bakersfield has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. Transit Score is 30 out of 100. If walkability matters to you, the neighborhood choice will matter more than the city-level number.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $71,624 to live in Bakersfield the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Bakersfield runs about $1,283/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.