Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Brockton's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Brockton?
Your $100,000 in Brockton has the same purchasing power as $80,561 in the average US city. You'd need $19,439 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 Brockton's cost index of 124, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Brockton? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly lower-than-average crime numbers and you don't actually need a car, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Reported crime in Brockton comes in around 2,479 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.
With a Walk Score of 90/100, Brockton is in the category where car ownership becomes a real choice rather than the default. Errands work on foot, the city's built dense enough that things are actually close together, and the parking-and-gas budget can quietly disappear. Transit Score comes in at 57/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Average AQI in Brockton comes in around 36, 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 Brockton'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.
Yes, several times a winter. Brockton's winter average of about 26°F sits right around freezing, so storms typically drop real snow that lingers a few days before slush sets in.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Brockton averages roughly 26°F in winter, with the coldest mornings dipping into the single digits a few times a year and most days landing somewhere between "chilly" and "actually cold".
Warm without being brutal. Summer in Brockton sits about 80°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 8. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 8 or colder should survive a typical winter in Brockton. (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 121 feet (37 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Brockton's altitude shows up in daily life.
Officially, Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, but most of the action lands between mid-August and mid-October. For Brockton, that's when to keep half an eye on the National Hurricane Center forecast cone — and when an actual evacuation plan is worth having in the drawer if you're in a low-lying or coastal neighborhood.
Middle of the pack. Brockton comes in around 2,479 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. Brockton's composite index is 124 versus 100 for the US, with rent and home prices driving most of the gap. Salaries in higher-paying industries usually move together, but the math still tightens for everyone else.
Yes, by US standards it's extraordinary. Brockton scores 90/100, one of the highest in the country. Transit Score is 57 out of 100. Living here without a car isn't just possible; for many residents it's the default.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $86,891 to live in Brockton 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 Brockton runs about $1,446/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.