Cost of Living
per year
per month
How South Whittier's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in South Whittier?
Your $100,000 in South Whittier has the same purchasing power as $73,508 in the average US city. You'd need $26,492 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 South Whittier's cost index of 136, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to South Whittier? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly paychecks come in above the us average and lower-than-average crime numbers. The detail on each one is below.
The typical household in South Whittier pulls in $94,149 — 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.
Reported crime in South Whittier comes in around 2,396 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.
Reasons are pulled from South Whittier'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.
It's rare. Winters in South Whittier run about 50°F — cold-snap mornings happen, real snowfall doesn't, except maybe once a decade.
Not very. Average winter temperatures of about 50°F mean South Whittier skips the harsh-winter problem most of the country has. A handful of cold mornings, otherwise sweater weather at worst.
Warm without being brutal. Summer in South Whittier sits about 75°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Approximately USDA Hardiness Zone 10. That's the band gardeners use to pick plants — anything rated for Zone 10 or colder should survive a typical winter in South Whittier. (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 174 feet (53 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about South Whittier's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. South Whittier comes in around 2,396 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Significantly. South Whittier's index of 136 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 36% 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.
South Whittier scores 40 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". 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 $95,228 to live in South Whittier 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 South Whittier runs about $1,758/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.