Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Cleveland's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Cleveland?
Your $100,000 in Cleveland has the same purchasing power as $126,040 in the average US city. You'd need $26,040 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 Cleveland's cost index of 79, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Cleveland? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly your money goes a lot further here and no state income tax, plus 2 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Cleveland's composite cost-of-living index is 79 — roughly 21% under the US baseline. Housing is doing most of the heavy lifting; groceries, utilities, and services are also cheaper than the national norm, just by smaller margins. Median rent in town runs about $922/mo against a typical household income of $52,468, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Tennessee is one of the handful of US states with no state income tax on wages, so the only income-tax bite on a paycheck in Cleveland is federal. For a household earning $100k, that's a tangible four-figure difference every year compared to a comparable salary in California or New York.
Average AQI in Cleveland 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 Cleveland 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 Cleveland'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. Cleveland's winter average of about 32°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. Cleveland averages roughly 32°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".
Reliably warm. Cleveland's summer averages around 87°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 8. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 8 or colder should survive a typical winter in Cleveland. (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 820 feet (250 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Cleveland's ~4,168 per 100,000 reflects a citywide aggregate. Some neighborhoods here are notably safer than the average; others are notably worse. Worth looking at the specific area, not the city-level number.
Cleveland is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 79 versus the 100 national baseline — about 21% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
In parts, yes. With a citywide Walk Score of 50/100, Cleveland has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. If walkability matters to you, the neighborhood choice will matter more than the city-level number.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $55,538 to live in Cleveland 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 Cleveland runs about $922/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.