Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Glendale's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Glendale?
Your $100,000 in Glendale has the same purchasing power as $73,115 in the average US city. You'd need $26,885 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 Glendale's cost index of 137, sorted by closest match.
Glendale has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Solidly above-average earnings and safer than the typical us city are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The typical household in Glendale pulls in $81,219 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Reported crime in Glendale comes in around 1,988 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.
Glendale has a college-educated share of about 44% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Glendale'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.
It's rare. Winters in Glendale run about 50°F — cold-snap mornings happen, real snowfall doesn't, except maybe once a decade.
Not very. Average winter temperatures of about 50°F mean Glendale skips the harsh-winter problem most of the country has. A handful of cold mornings, otherwise sweater weather at worst.
Warm without being brutal. Summer in Glendale sits about 75°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Glendale falls in roughly USDA Zone 10. The zone classification is based on average annual minimum temperatures, so it's the right lookup for whether perennials and trees will overwinter here. Note that this is approximate from our winter-temperature data — check the USDA map for the exact zone before betting an expensive plant on it.
Roughly 1,404 feet (428 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
The headline number is reassuring. Glendale's reported incident rate of about 1,988 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.
Significantly. Glendale's index of 137 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 37% above the national baseline. The pattern is familiar: housing eats a large share of incomes, and people earning median-equivalent jobs from cheaper metros feel the difference fast.
Glendale's Walk Score is 6/100, firmly in the car-required tier. Transit Score is 0 out of 100. The layout assumes you'll drive to the grocery store, drive to work, drive everywhere.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $95,739 to live in Glendale 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 Glendale runs about $2,002/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.