Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Salem's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Salem?
Your $100,000 in Salem has the same purchasing power as $80,109 in the average US city. You'd need $19,891 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 Salem's cost index of 125, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Salem? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly paychecks come in above the us average and it's a quieter city by the numbers, plus 3 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The typical household in Salem pulls in $79,196 — 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 Salem runs about 1,378 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.
With a citywide Walk Score of 68/100, Salem sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Average AQI in Salem 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.
Salem has a college-educated share of about 48% 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 Salem'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.
Yes, several times a winter. Salem's winter average of about 26°F sits right around freezing, so storms typically drop real snow that lingers a few days before slush sets in.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Salem 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 Salem sits about 80°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 8. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 8 or colder should survive a typical winter in Salem. (The estimate is derived from our winter-temperature data; the official USDA map uses station-level annual minimums and may differ by half a zone.)
Around 26 feet (8 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Salem's altitude shows up in daily life.
Officially, Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, but most of the action lands between mid-August and mid-October. For Salem, that's when to keep half an eye on the National Hurricane Center forecast cone — and when an actual evacuation plan is worth having in the drawer if you're in a low-lying or coastal neighborhood.
The headline number is reassuring. Salem's reported incident rate of about 1,378 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. Salem'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.
In parts, yes. With a citywide Walk Score of 68/100, Salem has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. Transit Score is 28 out of 100. If walkability matters to you, the neighborhood choice will matter more than the city-level number.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $87,381 to live in Salem 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 Salem runs about $1,678/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.