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Place dossier plate
SheetAK-ANCHORAGE-AK · Anchorage, AK 289,069 pop · income 77th pct · 61 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Anchorage
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Anchorage on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
St. Louis · lowest
55,279
St. Louis · lowest
55,279 median HH income
50.9% of the leader · rank #1
Shenandoah Fa… · near
98,147
Shenandoah Fa… · near
98,147 median HH income
90.3% of the leader · rank #2
Anchorage · this city
98,152
Anchorage · this city
98,152 median HH income
90.3% of the leader · rank #3
La Habra · near
98,158
La Habra · near
98,158 median HH income
90.3% of the leader · rank #4
Orangevale · near
98,158
Orangevale · near
98,158 median HH income
90.3% of the leader · rank #5
Montaqua · near
98,167
Montaqua · near
98,167 median HH income
90.4% of the leader · rank #6
Plano · highest
108,649
Plano · highest
108,649 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Anchorage on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 289,069.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Anchorage - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Anchorage places in the 77th percentile for household income and the 9th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
77th
percentile, household income
75th
percentile, home value
70th
percentile, median rent
9th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Anchorage, AK
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 289,069 residents in Anchorage, a mid-sized U.S. city within Alaska. Households in Anchorage report a median income of $98,152 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 5.8%. Home values in Anchorage run a median of $375,900, and the median resident age is 34.9 years. About 37.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 62.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 341 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 68% from five years earlier. Anchorage's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 3780.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 37.6°F with 16.4 inches of precipitation per year and 77.9 inches of snowfall.
Alaska tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 102.4 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,467 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $271 across Alaska, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 35.2 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Anchorage's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from comparison shortlist to work and mobility to climate and hazard context to housing and income to schools and households to reported crime to within-city variation to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Anchorage, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Anchorage?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within Alaska, the closest population matches are Fairbanks (32,242 residents, $72,077 income); Juneau (31,969 residents, $100,513 income); Badger (19,033 residents, $98,042 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Durham, NC (288,465 residents); Jersey City, NJ (289,691 residents); Plano, TX (287,339 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
What does the journey to work look like in Anchorage?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 71.0%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 37.6°F, with 16.4 inches of precipitation and 77.9 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Alaska is 35.2 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
What can 61 Census tracts reveal inside Anchorage?
PlainCities matches 61 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Anchorage?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.8%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.8×
Home value
$375,900
Household income
$98,152
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the education layer cover for Anchorage?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 79 public schools within the city match. 37.7% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
Poverty estimate
5.8%
Bachelor's degree+
37.7%
Matched public schools
79
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Anchorage?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3780.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 66% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
Total reported rate
3780.7
Violent rate
1014.8
Property rate
2765.9
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Anchorage growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -3,722 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 341 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
2020 estimate
290,877
2025 estimate
287,155
Period change
-1.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Household income B+
$98,152
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share B
37.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C+
5.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
102.4 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime F
1,015 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Anchorage profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 76/100 (B+) · $98,152
Bachelor's+ share: 71/100 (B) · 37.7%
Poverty rate: 60/100 (C+) · 5.8%
Cost of living: 29/100 (F) · 102.4 index
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,015 /100k
Where Anchorage sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Anchorage's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Anchorage highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Anchorage, AK (this city): home $375,900, crime 3,781/100k
Durham, NC : home $355,300, crime 4,419/100k
Jersey City, NJ : home $534,500, crime 2,591/100k
Plano, TX : home $440,600, crime 1,618/100k
Lincoln, NE : home $248,200, crime 2,794/100k
St. Louis, MO : home $185,100, crime 7,074/100k
Greensboro, NC : home $221,300, crime 4,307/100k
Fairbanks, AK : home $255,700, crime 4,161/100k
Juneau, AK : home $432,500, crime 2,607/100k
How does Anchorage compare to other US cities?
Here's how Anchorage stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income77% higher than other cities
Home value75% pricier than other cities
Median rent70% pricier than other cities
Safety9% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Alaska and the picture shifts: Anchorage ranks #21 of 23 Alaska cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Anchorage against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Alaska only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Alaska-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Anchorage near the bottom of Alaska's cities
Among the 228 Alaska cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Anchorage ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Anchorage only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#30 of 215
86th percentile in Alaska
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 228
0th percentile in Alaska
Median Home Value
#19 of 200
91st percentile in Alaska
Poverty Rate
#152 of 225
32nd percentile in Alaska
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#23 of 228
89th percentile in Alaska
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Alaska only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
77th percentile nationally for median household income · 9th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Anchorage's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Anchorage's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Anchorage's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$375,90025th percentilemore affordable than 25% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Anchorage's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,162 of 15,516
More affordable than 35% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#40 of 117
Large cities (200,000–999,999)
At 3.8×, Anchorage sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,162 of 15,516 and #40 of 117large cities (200,000–999,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$98,152Anchorage, AK median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Anchorage, AK median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Anchorage, AK.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)37.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
289,069
Median Income
$98,152
Median Home Value
$375,900
Median Age
34.9
Poverty Rate
5.8%
Labor force participation
62.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
37.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3780.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1014.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2765.9
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Climate
Avg Temperature
37.6°F
Annual Precipitation
16.4"
Annual Snowfall
77.9"
Schools
Total Schools
79
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Anchorage's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
290,877 residents
2021
288,923 residents
2022
286,992 residents
2023
286,771 residents
2024
287,369 residents
2025
287,155 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
341
housing units authorized
Single-Family
161
detached homes
Multifamily
180
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1,059
838
221
$298.2M
2020
970
735
235
$271.7M
2021
1,133
840
293
$312.5M
2022
155
124
31
$69.2M
2023
299
271
28
$108.3M
2024
341
161
180
$100.6M
Permit volume decreased 68% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
71.0%
Carpool
12.4%
Public Transit
1.4%
Walk
2.6%
Work from Home
9.6%
Other
3.0%
Based on 148,502 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Alaska statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $271
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Alaska at $271 (electricity about $131 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Alaska statewide averages, not a meter reading for Anchorage. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Alaska's BEA cost-of-living index is 102.4 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Anchorage is $1,467/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Alaska statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 35.2 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Alaska statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Anchorage sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Anchorage compares to similar-size Alaska cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NOAA Climate Normals, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.