Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Blaine's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Blaine?
Your $100,000 in Blaine has the same purchasing power as $93,729 in the average US city. You'd need $6,271 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 Blaine's cost index of 107, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Blaine? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly paychecks come in above the us average and lower-than-average crime numbers, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The typical household in Blaine pulls in $100,659 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Reported crime in Blaine comes in around 2,037 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Average AQI in Blaine comes in around 37, well into the "good" band. Clean air isn't a thing you appreciate until you've lived somewhere it wasn't — and this is the side of that line you want to be on.
Reasons are pulled from Blaine'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.
Snow is just part of the winter in Blaine. Average temperatures around 12°F mean the ground stays covered from December well into March, and a snowblower is less optional than aspirational.
Properly cold. Blaine's winter sits around 12°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Blaine's summer averages around 81°F, the kind of heat where you remember to leave the house before noon for outdoor things and accept that the back of your shirt will be wet by lunchtime.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 6. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 6 or colder should survive a typical winter in Blaine. (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.)
Roughly 899 feet (274 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Middle of the pack. Blaine comes in around 2,037 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Blaine's index of 107 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Blaine's Walk Score is 19/100, firmly in the car-required tier. The layout assumes you'll drive to the grocery store, drive to work, drive everywhere.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $74,683 to live in Blaine 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 Blaine runs about $1,635/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.