Charleston vs Worcester
Metro-area medians — Charleston-North Charleston, SC Metro Area vs Worcester, MA Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Charleston and Worcester are evenly matched, each taking 4 of the clearly-decided measures.
Charleston and Worcester cost about the same to live in, but Worcester households earn about 7% more. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Worcester.
For your salary & household
Enter your pay and household size to see what it's really worth here — the numbers update live and the link stays shareable.
On $75,000 for just you, Charleston leaves you about $1,697/yr better off after tax and local prices.
Take-home estimates a single filer taking the standard deduction (2025 federal brackets, FICA, and state income tax) and isn't tax advice. “Real value” rebases take-home to average U.S. prices using the BEA cost-of-living index; the per-person figure uses the OECD square-root equivalence scale.
Choose Charleston for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Median home value
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
Choose Worcester for
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median household income
- + Median rent
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Charleston vs Worcester — frequently asked
- Is Charleston cheaper than Worcester?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Charleston and Worcester metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Charleston or Worcester?
- Worcester has the higher median household income — $96,602 versus $90,307 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 7% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Charleston or Worcester?
- A paycheck stretches further in Worcester. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $94,225 there versus $89,447 in Charleston.
- Which has cheaper rent, Charleston or Worcester?
- Worcester has cheaper rent — a median of $1,563/mo versus $1,714/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).