What salary do you need to live in Kenosha, WI?

What housing costs in Kenosha

A one-bedroom in Kenosha rents for a median of $980 a month, utilities the tenant pays included; a two-bedroom goes for $1,203 and a three-bedroom for $1,471. Over a full year, the two-bedroom median comes to $14,436.

Buying is the other half of the housing picture: owners put the median home in Kenosha, WI at $265,500. Against a median household income of $81,239, the ratio is 3.3× — one of the gentler home-price-to-income ratios in the country.

Price levels matter beyond rent. The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures Kenosha's overall prices at 101.1 on a scale where the nation is 100, which makes a $100,000 salary feel like about $98,894 would elsewhere.

The salary lines for a two-bedroom in Kenosha

The salary lines for a two-bedroom household land at $41,000 for Tight, $81,000 for Okay and $163,000 for Comfortable. The gap between the Okay and Comfortable lines alone is $82,000, which says how much extra income it takes to make housing feel roomy here rather than merely workable.

Reaching Royal takes $549,000 — 3.4× the Comfortable line — because the last points come slowly once rent is already a small share.

These lines come straight from the calculator's formula: the income is raised until the two-bedroom score crosses each cutoff, then rounded up to the next $1,000.

Four salaries, three home sizes in Kenosha

Take a $75,000 salary. In a one-bedroom the rent share is 16% and the score 46, Okay; in a three-bedroom the share rises to 24% and the score falls to 40, Tight.

Comfortable is above every row of the table here. At $150,000 a two-bedroom still grades Okay, with rent taking 10% of income.

Kenosha on the national list

Out of 387 metros, Kenosha has the 66th highest price parity and the 159th highest two-bedroom rent, which puts it in the most expensive quarter on overall prices and in the middle half on rent.

Athens-Clarke County, GA ($1,204) and Traverse City, MI ($1,200) bracket Kenosha on two-bedroom rent.

Kenosha next to Wisconsin and similar metros

Statewide, Wisconsin's median two-bedroom rent is $1,106 and its median home value $266,500. Kenosha's rent is +9% against that, and its home value 0%; the price parity is 101.1 versus 94.1 for the state.

On statewide medians, a two-bedroom budget reaches Comfortable at $133,000 — below Kenosha's $163,000 line.

If Kenosha is on your list, Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI, Racine-Mount Pleasant, WI, and La Crosse-Onalaska, WI-MN are the most similar Wisconsin metros by two-bedroom rent and price level; the table shows where each turns Comfortable.

The median Kenosha household

The median household in the metro earns $81,239 (ACS 2020-2024). Run through the calculator with two bedrooms, that scores 45, Okay. That falls $81,761 short of the $163,000 Comfortable line, a reminder that the typical household here spends a larger share on housing than the Comfortable band allows. Statewide, the Wisconsin median household ($77,485) grades Okay on the state's own medians. Since a household can have two or more earners, compare it with a combined income rather than one paycheck.

All figures are pre-tax estimates from public data, not financial advice.