Cost of Living in Los Angeles, CA

Population & Growth of Los Angeles

Los Angeles is home to roughly 3,878,704 people as of 2024, making it the most populous city in California and one of the faster-growing metros in the state, with population up 0.8% over the past five years. That growth is a big part of why housing costs here have climbed the way they have.

This manifests in home size and price in Los Angeles, where housing is more expensive and tends to be smaller. Renting a storage unit in Los Angeles is an affordable way to free up space at home—the price of a 5x10 unit on average is $136 per month. If you're planning a move in Los Angeles, Extra Space Storage has facilities across LA's most popular neighborhoods to help with your transition. Find a storage unit in Los Angeles today!

Cost of Living in Los Angeles, CA by Household Size

A single adult in Los Angeles needs about $60,161 per year to cover essentials. A family of four should budget closer to $104,067 annually for the same categories at household scale—roughly 73% more than a single person needs, driven mainly by higher housing and transportation costs.

What Salary Do You Need to Live in Los Angeles?

Based on U.S. median household income adjusted for local cost of living in 2026, you'd need to earn around $124,201 per year to match the standard of living a typical American household has nationally—about 52.2% higher than the U.S. Average.

For essentials only, MIT's Living Wage Calculator puts the floor at $60,161 after taxes for a single adult covering housing, groceries, transportation, and healthcare.

• Is $60,000 a good salary in Los Angeles? While $60,000 is likely enough to cover basic essentials in LA, it may be a little tight, especially when it comes to housing. Consider living with roommates or finding other ways to cut costs to make $60,000 a more comfortable salary.

• Is $100,000 enough? For a single adult, $100,000 does comfortably cover typical Los Angeles costs, but saving may be difficult, particularly with housing running 133% higher than the national average.

For context, the minimum wage in Los Angeles is $18.42 per hour, 9% higher than the California minimum of $16.90. Both are above the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The median household income in Los Angeles is $82,263 annually, providing additional context for how local earnings compare to the cost-of-living benchmark above.

Taxes in Los Angeles, CA

California has a 1%-12.3% graduated state income tax, which doesn't change the affordability picture. A $100,000 salary in Los Angeles may stretch about the same as or a little more than the same salary in New York, with Los Angeles' lower day-to-day costs. It's worth noting that California leans on relatively high state sales taxes instead, so it's not a clean wash. The combined sales tax rate in Los Angeles is 7.25%, and there is no local income tax.

How Does Los Angeles, CA Compare to the Rest of California?

As of 2026, Los Angeles’s cost of living is 9.1% higher than the California state average—a smaller gap than the 52.2% difference from the national average, showing how much pricier Los Angeles is relative to the rest of the state.

Cost of Living in Los Angeles, CA Changes Over Time

Cost of living in Los Angeles has stayed around 50% above the national average over the past five years. Housing costs are a primary driver of this: decades of limited construction, combined with tight inventory as owners held onto low-rate mortgages, have pushed home prices up about 10% and rents up about 11% since 2021. Population growth and inflation have also contributed to increased costs for basic needs like utilities, groceries, and healthcare.

Compare Los Angeles Cost of Living to Other Nearby Cities

How does Los Angeles compare to other cities nearby? Riverside's cost of living is 23.7% lower than Los Angeles, with the biggest gap in housing. See the full city-by-city comparisons below.

• Cost of Living in Riverside, CA—23.7% lower than Los Angeles

• Cost of Living in Palm Springs, CA—19.3% lower than Los Angeles

• Cost of Living in Bakersfield, CA—28.4% lower than Los Angeles

• Cost of Living in San Diego, CA—3.7% lower than Los Angeles

• Cost of Living Index—C2ER: Our cost of living calculator is powered by data from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), a trusted nonprofit organization that collects and compares prices across hundreds of U.S. cities. The C2ER Cost of Living Index measures everyday expenses like housing, groceries, transportation, utilities, healthcare, and other common goods and services, so you can see how costs stack up in different places. Each city's score is benchmarked against a national average of 100, which makes comparisons easy. For example, a score of 110 would indicate costs about 10% higher than the national average. We update our calculator twice a year to reflect the latest C2ER data. While these numbers represent citywide averages, it's important to keep in mind that your actual expenses may vary depending on your lifestyle and the neighborhood you choose. The category comparisons and dynamic figures throughout this page pull directly and automatically from this C2ER dataset via our CMS integration, so they stay current without manual updates each refresh cycle.

• Salary Benchmarks—Census/ACS and MIT Living Wage Calculator This page uses two distinct salary benchmarks, kept separate because they answer different questions. The "salary needed to live" figure is a cost-of-living-adjusted equivalence: U.S. median household income (Census/ACS) multiplied by the city's overall C2ER index, divided by 100—representing what a typical American household would need to earn locally to match the purchasing power they'd have nationally. The essentials-only figure referenced alongside it, and reused in the household-size breakdown, comes from MIT's Living Wage Calculator, using the after-tax, single-adult, no-children estimate as the baseline. The family-of-four figure in the household-size section uses MIT's "2 adults, both working, 2 children" scenario for consistency across cities. These figures are checked and refreshed manually as part of each city page's content update.

• Taxes—State and Local Tax Authority Sites: State income tax status, combined sales tax rate, and local income tax rate (where applicable) are researched and verified manually against each state's Department of Revenue or equivalent tax authority site as part of each city page's update.

• Cost of Living Over Time—Historical C2ER Data: Year-over-year cost-of-living trend figures are calculated in-house by comparing the city's current C2ER Cost of Living Index score against its own past C2ER reports, checked and calculated manually as part of each city page's content update.

• Population and Income Context—Census/ACS: Population figures, growth rates, and median household income come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, checked manually at each refresh.

• Neighborhood-Level Pricing—AreaVibes: Where a page identifies a specific cheaper neighborhood or suburb, median rent and home price comparisons are sourced from AreaVibes listing data, checked manually at each refresh. 

• Update Cadence: C2ER data refreshes automatically twice a year via our CMS integration. All other figures on this page—salary benchmarks, tax rates, CPI trends, Census data, and neighborhood pricing—are manually reviewed and updated as part of each city page's content refresh cycle.