Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Long Beach's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Long Beach?
Your $100,000 in Long Beach has the same purchasing power as $73,833 in the average US city. You'd need $26,167 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 Long Beach's cost index of 135, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Long Beach, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. A higher-income labor market than the national norm and most daily life happens on foot lead — the rest unpacked below.
The typical household in Long Beach pulls in $78,995 — 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.
With a Walk Score of 90/100, Long Beach 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. Transit Score comes in at 51/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Reasons are pulled from Long Beach'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 Long Beach 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 Long Beach 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 Long Beach sits about 75°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Zone 10, give or take a half-zone. Long Beach's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 10 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 36 feet (11 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Long Beach's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Long Beach comes in around 3,248 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Significantly. Long Beach's index of 135 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 35% 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.
Yes, by US standards it's extraordinary. Long Beach scores 90/100, one of the highest in the country. Transit Score is 51 out of 100. Living here without a car isn't just possible; for many residents it's the default.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $94,808 to live in Long Beach 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 Long Beach runs about $1,698/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.