Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Waukegan's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Waukegan?
Your $100,000 in Waukegan has the same purchasing power as $97,580 in the average US city. You'd need $2,420 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 Waukegan's cost index of 102, sorted by closest match.
Waukegan has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Crime statistics come out reassuring and walkable in a way most us cities aren't are the headliners, plus 1 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
The reported crime rate in Waukegan runs about 161 per 100,000 residents — meaningfully below the national norm. People who care about safety as a baseline rather than a feature tend to land in cities with numbers like these.
With a citywide Walk Score of 72/100, Waukegan 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 Waukegan comes in around 42, 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 Waukegan'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 22°F, Waukegan 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. Waukegan's winter sits around 22°F on average — and that's the average, meaning plenty of nights drop well below zero. People here own gear.
Reliably warm. Waukegan's summer averages around 82°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.
Waukegan 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 722 feet (220 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
The headline number is reassuring. Waukegan's reported incident rate of about 161 per 100,000 is comfortably below the US norm of around 3,500 per 100k. Specific neighborhoods always vary, but the broader picture is on the safer side.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Waukegan's index of 102 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Waukegan scores 72/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. Transit Score is 31 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 $71,736 to live in Waukegan 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 Waukegan runs about $1,132/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.