Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Cathedral City's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Cathedral City?
Your $100,000 in Cathedral City has the same purchasing power as $85,638 in the average US city. You'd need $14,362 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 Cathedral City's cost index of 117, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Cathedral City, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. On the calmer side of the national distribution and the drive to work is mercifully short lead — the rest unpacked below.
Reported crime in Cathedral City comes in around 1,980 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 commute time in Cathedral City runs around 20 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 Cathedral City'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 37°F, Cathedral City 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 Cathedral City sit around 37°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Cathedral City's summer averages around 103°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.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. Cathedral City's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 390 feet (119 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Cathedral City's altitude shows up in daily life.
The headline number is reassuring. Cathedral City's reported incident rate of about 1,980 per 100,000 is comfortably below the US norm of around 3,500 per 100k. Specific neighborhoods always vary, but the broader picture is on the safer side.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. Cathedral City's composite index is 117 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.
Cathedral City scores 29 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $81,739 to live in Cathedral City 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 Cathedral City runs about $1,445/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.