Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Cambridge's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Cambridge?
Your $100,000 in Cambridge has the same purchasing power as $78,040 in the average US city. You'd need $21,960 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 Cambridge's cost index of 128, sorted by closest match.
Cambridge has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. A high-income city, even by US standards and the labor market runs tight are the headliners, plus 5 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
Cambridge's typical household earns $121,539, which puts it in the top tier of US cities for household income. The bottom of the wage distribution isn't necessarily different from anywhere else, but the median and above sit meaningfully higher.
The unemployment rate in Cambridge sits at roughly 3.3%, which is a tight labor market by US standards. Salaries get nudged up faster, openings are easier to find, and switching jobs is less of a leap than it is in a softer market.
Reported crime in Cambridge comes in around 2,657 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 97/100, Cambridge 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 82/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Bike Score of 97/100 in Cambridge. That puts it in the small group of US cities where you can do groceries, commute, and run errands on a bike without it being a feat of urban survival.
Average AQI in Cambridge comes in around 34, 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.
Cambridge has a college-educated share of about 80% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Cambridge'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.
Cambridge gets a handful of meaningful snow days each year. Winters average about 26°F — cold enough for several inches at a time, warm enough for everything to melt between storms.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Cambridge 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 Cambridge sits about 80°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Cambridge falls in roughly USDA Zone 8. The zone classification is based on average annual minimum temperatures, so it's the right lookup for whether perennials and trees will overwinter here. Note that this is approximate from our winter-temperature data — check the USDA map for the exact zone before betting an expensive plant on it.
Around 36 feet (11 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Cambridge's altitude shows up in daily life.
Hurricane season covers June through November, with peak activity in late summer and early fall. For Cambridge, the practical advice is: have a few days of water and supplies on hand from August onward, know your evacuation route, and don't wait for the news to tell you a storm is "probably nothing" — track the cone yourself.
Middle of the pack. Cambridge comes in around 2,657 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. Cambridge's composite index is 128 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. Cambridge scores 97/100, one of the highest in the country. Transit Score is 82 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 $89,698 to live in Cambridge 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 Cambridge runs about $2,628/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.