Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Peabody's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Peabody?
Your $100,000 in Peabody has the same purchasing power as $79,885 in the average US city. You'd need $20,115 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 Peabody's cost index of 125, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Peabody, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. A higher-income labor market than the national norm and among the safer us cities of its size lead, plus 1 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The typical household in Peabody pulls in $91,125 — 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.
The reported crime rate in Peabody runs about 1,072 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.
Average AQI in Peabody 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.
Reasons are pulled from Peabody'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, Peabody 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. Peabody 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".
Warm without being brutal. Summer in Peabody sits about 80°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Zone 8, give or take a half-zone. Peabody'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 220 feet (67 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Peabody'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 Peabody 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. Peabody's reported incident rate of about 1,072 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. Peabody's composite index is 125 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.
Peabody's Walk Score is 6/100, 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 $87,626 to live in Peabody 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 Peabody runs about $1,795/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.