Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Chicopee's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Chicopee?
Your $100,000 in Chicopee has the same purchasing power as $105,932 in the average US city. You'd need $5,932 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 Chicopee's cost index of 94, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Chicopee? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly cheaper than the national average, with no fine print and lower-than-average crime numbers, plus 2 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 94, a comfortable 6% 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 $1,058/mo against a typical household income of $63,866, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Reported crime in Chicopee comes in around 2,428 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 Chicopee 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.
Average commute time in Chicopee runs around 21 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 Chicopee'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 Chicopee. Average temperatures around 20°F mean the ground stays covered from December well into March, and a snowblower is less optional than aspirational.
Properly cold. Chicopee's winter sits around 20°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Warm without being brutal. Summer in Chicopee sits about 77°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
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 Chicopee. (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 243 feet (74 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Chicopee'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 Chicopee, 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. Chicopee comes in around 2,428 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. Chicopee's index of 94 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Chicopee scores 41 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 51 out of 100. 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 $66,080 to live in Chicopee 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 Chicopee runs about $1,058/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.