Living in Worcester, MA

Worcester's crime numbers hover right around the U.S. average. Violent crime index: 86. Property crime index: 64. The national baseline for both is 100, so you're looking at a city that's neither notably safe nor notably dangerous on paper. In practice, where you live within the city shifts the picture dramatically — a 10-minute drive can mean a completely different experience. Check local crime maps. Source: FBI UCR.

Most households manage fine. Median rent in Worcester is $1,415/month, and the typical household pulls in $67,544/year — a 25.1% rent-to-income ratio. That's under the 30% threshold where housing costs start to pinch, though not by a huge margin. If you're a single earner or have significant debt payments, run your own numbers carefully. For dual-income households, the math works out comfortably. Census ACS 2023.

Worth considering, yes. At 22 minutes average, the commute in Worcester isn't brutal but it's not trivial either. 65.8% drive alone, 2.7% ride transit, and 10.7% work remotely. Where you live relative to your office will make a bigger difference than the city-wide average suggests.

Everything on this page is built from public government sources: rent and income figures from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS 5-Year Estimates, 2023); commute and transportation data from Census ACS tables B08303 and B08006; crime rates from the FBI Uniform Crime Report. We refresh each dataset monthly through an automated pipeline and cross-check for anomalies. No surveys, no user-submitted guesses — just official federal data presented in a way that's actually useful for people researching a move.