Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Torrance's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Torrance?
Your $100,000 in Torrance has the same purchasing power as $72,902 in the average US city. You'd need $27,098 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 Torrance's cost index of 137, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Torrance? 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, plus 2 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
The typical household in Torrance pulls in $109,554 — 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 Torrance comes in around 2,922 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.
With a Walk Score of 85/100, Torrance 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.
Torrance has a college-educated share of about 53% 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 Torrance'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 Torrance 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 Torrance 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 Torrance 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 Torrance. (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 85 feet (26 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Torrance's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Torrance comes in around 2,922 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. Torrance's index of 137 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 37% 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.
Torrance scores 85/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 43 out of 100. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $96,019 to live in Torrance 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 Torrance runs about $2,132/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.