Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Thornton's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Thornton?
Your $100,000 in Thornton has the same purchasing power as $84,090 in the average US city. You'd need $15,910 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 Thornton's cost index of 119, sorted by closest match.
Thornton 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 walkable in a way most us cities aren't are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The typical household in Thornton pulls in $95,064 — 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.
With a citywide Walk Score of 63/100, Thornton 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 Thornton comes in around 37, 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 Thornton'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 — and a lot of it. With winter averages near 19°F, Thornton sees real accumulation most years. Salt for the steps, tires that handle ice, and a sense of humor about February are the usual costs of admission.
Properly cold. Thornton's winter sits around 19°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Thornton's summer averages around 87°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.
Thornton falls in roughly USDA Zone 7. 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 5,197 feet (1,584 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. Thornton comes in around 3,817 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. Thornton's composite index is 119 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 63/100, Thornton has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. Transit Score is 24 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 $83,244 to live in Thornton 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 Thornton runs about $1,758/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.