Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Lafayette's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Lafayette?
Your $100,000 in Lafayette has the same purchasing power as $126,968 in the average US city. You'd need $26,968 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 Lafayette's cost index of 79, sorted by closest match.
Lafayette has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. The cost-of-living math actually works and air quality you don't have to think about are the headliners, plus 2 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
By the numbers, Lafayette is one of the more affordable US cities of its size. The composite index sits at 79, about 21% below the national average, with housing as the main driver of the discount. Median rent in town runs about $1,022/mo against a typical household income of $58,850, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Average AQI in Lafayette comes in around 44, 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 Lafayette runs around 20 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.
Lafayette has a college-educated share of about 40% 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 Lafayette'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.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 43°F, Lafayette sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Lafayette sit around 43°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Lafayette's summer averages around 92°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Lafayette falls in roughly USDA Zone 9. 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.
Around 39 feet (12 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Lafayette's altitude shows up in daily life.
Hurricane season covers June through November, with peak activity in late summer and early fall. For Lafayette, the practical advice is: have a few days of water and supplies on hand from August onward, know your evacuation route, and don't wait for the news to tell you a storm is "probably nothing" — track the cone yourself.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Lafayette's ~4,866 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.
Lafayette 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.
Lafayette scores 40 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". 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 $55,132 to live in Lafayette 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 Lafayette runs about $1,022/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.