Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Lawrence's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Lawrence?
Your $100,000 in Lawrence has the same purchasing power as $107,875 in the average US city. You'd need $7,875 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 Lawrence's cost index of 93, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Lawrence, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Living costs come in under the US baseline and on the calmer side of the national distribution lead — the rest unpacked below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 93, a comfortable 7% 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 $1,064/mo against a typical household income of $70,762, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
Reported crime in Lawrence comes in around 2,331 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.
Reasons are pulled from Lawrence'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 26°F, Lawrence 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. Lawrence averages roughly 26°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. Lawrence's summer averages around 85°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. Lawrence'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.
Roughly 853 feet (260 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Middle of the pack. Lawrence comes in around 2,331 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Lawrence's index of 93 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Lawrence scores 31 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 $64,890 to live in Lawrence 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 Lawrence runs about $1,064/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.