Cost of Living
per year
per month
How East Orange's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in East Orange?
Your $100,000 in East Orange has the same purchasing power as $80,418 in the average US city. You'd need $19,582 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 East Orange's cost index of 124, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to East Orange? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly it's a quieter city by the numbers and you don't actually need a car, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The reported crime rate in East Orange runs about 1,098 per 100,000 residents — meaningfully below the national norm. People who care about safety as a baseline rather than a feature tend to land in cities with numbers like these.
With a Walk Score of 86/100, East Orange 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 63/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Average AQI in East Orange comes in around 42, 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.
Reasons are pulled from East Orange'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. East Orange's winter average of about 28°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. East Orange averages roughly 28°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. East Orange's summer averages around 84°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 East Orange. (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 187 feet (57 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about East Orange'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 East Orange, 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.
The headline number is reassuring. East Orange's reported incident rate of about 1,098 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. East Orange's composite index is 124 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.
East Orange scores 86/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 63 out of 100. 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 $87,045 to live in East Orange 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 East Orange runs about $1,331/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.