Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Canton's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Canton?
Your $100,000 in Canton has the same purchasing power as $123,854 in the average US city. You'd need $23,854 less 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 Canton's cost index of 81, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Canton? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly cheaper than the national average, with no fine print and you can walk to most of what you need, plus 3 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 81, a comfortable 19% under the US norm. It shows up most clearly in housing, which is where the gap to coastal metros usually opens up. Median rent in town runs about $793/mo against a typical household income of $37,627, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
With a citywide Walk Score of 75/100, Canton sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Bike Score of 66/100 in Canton. 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 Canton comes in around 43, 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.
Average commute time in Canton runs around 19 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 Canton'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 Canton. Average temperatures around 23°F mean the ground stays covered from December well into March, and a snowblower is less optional than aspirational.
Properly cold. Canton's winter sits around 23°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Canton's summer averages around 82°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 7. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 7 or colder should survive a typical winter in Canton. (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 1,070 feet (326 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Canton's reported crime rate runs high: about 6,749 per 100,000 residents, materially above the national average. Specific neighborhoods vary widely, but the city-wide aggregate is on the rougher end of the US distribution.
Canton is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 81 versus the 100 national baseline — about 19% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Canton scores 75/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $56,518 to live in Canton 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 Canton runs about $793/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.