Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Waterbury's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Waterbury?
Your $100,000 in Waterbury has the same purchasing power as $104,384 in the average US city. You'd need $4,384 less 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 Waterbury's cost index of 96, sorted by closest match.
So why do people move to Waterbury? The honest answer involves a few specific things the data backs up — most clearly housing is the bargain and you don't actually need a car, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The detail on each one is below.
Median rent is about $1,140/mo, and the housing sub-index lands at 80 (US avg = 100) in Waterbury. That's the line item people from coastal metros usually find hardest to believe — and the one that frees up budget for everything else.
With a Walk Score of 85/100, Waterbury 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. Transit Score comes in at 57/100 too, so even the trips that are too far to walk are usually doable on a bus or train.
Average AQI in Waterbury 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.
Reasons are pulled from Waterbury'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. Waterbury's winter average of about 30°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. Waterbury averages roughly 30°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. Waterbury's summer averages around 83°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.
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 Waterbury. (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 351 feet (107 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Waterbury'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 Waterbury, 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.
Middle of the pack. Waterbury comes in around 3,288 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. Waterbury's index of 96 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Waterbury scores 85/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 57 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 $67,060 to live in Waterbury 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 Waterbury runs about $1,140/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.