Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Lakewood's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Lakewood?
Your $100,000 in Lakewood has the same purchasing power as $81,413 in the average US city. You'd need $18,587 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 Lakewood's cost index of 123, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Lakewood, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Among the safer US cities of its size and most daily life happens on foot lead, plus 2 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The reported crime rate in Lakewood runs about -24 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 83/100, Lakewood 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.
Average AQI in Lakewood comes in around 34, 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 Lakewood 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 Lakewood'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 a regular feature, not a surprise. With winter temperatures hovering near 30°F, Lakewood sees enough snowfall that locals don't think twice about it but also enough mild stretches that nobody owns three pairs of boots.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Lakewood averages roughly 30°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. Lakewood's summer averages around 83°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.
Zone 8, give or take a half-zone. Lakewood's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 8 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 75 feet (23 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Lakewood's altitude shows up in daily life.
Atlantic basin storms can form from June 1 to November 30, but the serious ones cluster in August, September, and the first half of October. Residents of Lakewood learn the season's rhythm fast: watch the cone, board up when it's the call, and don't shrug off the slow-mover storms — those are usually the ones that flood.
The headline number is reassuring. Lakewood's reported incident rate of about -24 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. Lakewood's composite index is 123 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.
Lakewood scores 83/100 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 $85,981 to live in Lakewood 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 Lakewood runs about $1,619/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.