Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Eau Claire's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Eau Claire?
Your $100,000 in Eau Claire has the same purchasing power as $115,634 in the average US city. You'd need $15,634 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 Eau Claire's cost index of 86, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Eau Claire? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly cheaper than the national average, with no fine print and jobs are easy to find right now, plus 5 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 86, a comfortable 14% 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 $929/mo against a typical household income of $63,882, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Unemployment in Eau Claire is running about 3.6% — below the typical US baseline of around 4%. That usually translates to a job market where employers compete for workers more than the other way around, which is the better side of that equation to be on if you're the one moving.
Reported crime in Eau Claire comes in around 2,383 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.
With a citywide Walk Score of 73/100, Eau Claire 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 75/100 in Eau Claire. 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 Eau Claire 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 Eau Claire runs around 16 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 Eau Claire'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 Eau Claire. Average temperatures around 12°F mean the ground stays covered from December well into March, and a snowblower is less optional than aspirational.
Properly cold. Eau Claire's winter sits around 12°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Eau Claire's summer averages around 81°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 6. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 6 or colder should survive a typical winter in Eau Claire. (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 883 feet (269 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Middle of the pack. Eau Claire comes in around 2,383 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Eau Claire is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 86 versus the 100 national baseline — about 14% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Eau Claire scores 73/100 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 $60,536 to live in Eau Claire 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 Eau Claire runs about $929/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.