Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Pomona's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Pomona?
Your $100,000 in Pomona has the same purchasing power as $76,086 in the average US city. You'd need $23,914 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 Pomona's cost index of 131, sorted by closest match.
Why do people move to Pomona? On the data, the answer is largely most daily life happens on foot. The detail is below.
With a Walk Score of 94/100, Pomona 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 53/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Reasons are pulled from Pomona'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 37°F, Pomona 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 Pomona sit around 37°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Pomona's summer averages around 103°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. Pomona's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Roughly 856 feet (261 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Pomona's ~4,115 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. Pomona's index of 131 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 31% 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. Pomona scores 94/100, one of the highest in the country. Transit Score is 53 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 $92,001 to live in Pomona 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 Pomona runs about $1,631/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.