Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Newark's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Newark?
Your $100,000 in Newark has the same purchasing power as $66,662 in the average US city. You'd need $33,338 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 Newark's cost index of 150, sorted by closest match.
Newark has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. A high-income city, even by US standards and a genuinely mild climate are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
Newark's typical household earns $159,465, which puts it in the top tier of US cities for household income. The bottom of the wage distribution isn't necessarily different from anywhere else, but the median and above sit meaningfully higher.
Newark's climate sits in the rare US sweet spot — summer averages around 80°F, winter averages around 42°F. You get four seasons without paying the heating bills of the Upper Midwest or the AC bills of the Sun Belt.
Newark 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 Newark'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 42°F, Newark 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 Newark sit around 42°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Reliably warm. Newark's summer averages around 80°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.
Newark 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.
Barely above the water. Newark is at about 10 feet (3 m) elevation, and parts of the city are essentially at sea level. Flood-zone maps are worth checking before buying a house.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Newark's ~4,718 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.
Significantly. Newark's index of 150 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 50% 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.
Newark's Walk Score is 0/100, firmly in the car-required tier. The layout assumes you'll drive to the grocery store, drive to work, drive everywhere.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $105,007 to live in Newark 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 Newark runs about $2,644/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.