Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Sandy's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Sandy?
Your $100,000 in Sandy has the same purchasing power as $92,661 in the average US city. You'd need $7,339 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 Sandy's cost index of 108, sorted by closest match.
Sandy has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Solidly above-average earnings and the labor market runs tight are the headliners, plus 4 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The typical household in Sandy pulls in $108,165 — 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 unemployment rate in Sandy sits at roughly 2.2%, which is a tight labor market by US standards. Salaries get nudged up faster, openings are easier to find, and switching jobs is less of a leap than it is in a softer market.
Reported crime in Sandy comes in around 2,719 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Average AQI in Sandy comes in around 44, 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.
Average commute time in Sandy runs around 23 minutes one-way — short enough that it doesn't restructure your day. Compared to the 45-plus-minute commutes that are normal in major metros, the difference adds up to a real lifestyle gap.
Sandy has a college-educated share of about 45% 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 Sandy'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.
Sandy gets a handful of meaningful snow days each year. Winters average about 26°F — cold enough for several inches at a time, warm enough for everything to melt between storms.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Sandy 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".
Reliably warm. Sandy's summer averages around 90°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.
Sandy falls in roughly USDA Zone 8. 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.
Roughly 4,787 feet (1,459 m) above sea level. At that altitude, the first few days for a coastal visitor can feel mildly off — shorter breath on stairs, faster fatigue — but it normalizes quickly.
Middle of the pack. Sandy comes in around 2,719 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Sandy's index of 108 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Sandy scores 47 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 23 out of 100. Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $75,544 to live in Sandy 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 Sandy runs about $1,640/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.