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Place dossier plate
SheetMA-WORCESTER-MA · Worcester, MA 205,501 pop · income 46th pct · 191 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 Worcester
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Worcester on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Springfield · lowest
51,339
Springfield · lowest
51,339 median HH income
40.6% of the leader · rank #1
Broadview Park · near
67,532
Broadview Park · near
67,532 median HH income
53.4% of the leader · rank #2
Port Vincent · near
67,538
Port Vincent · near
67,538 median HH income
53.4% of the leader · rank #3
Worcester · this city
67,544
Worcester · this city
67,544 median HH income
53.4% of the leader · rank #4
Navy Yard · near
67,546
Navy Yard · near
67,546 median HH income
53.4% of the leader · rank #5
Fairlawn · near
67,549
Fairlawn · near
67,549 median HH income
53.4% of the leader · rank #6
Cambridge · highest
126,469
Cambridge · highest
126,469 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 Worcester 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: 205,501.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Worcester - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Worcester places in the 46th percentile for household income and the 99th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
46th
percentile, household income
70th
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
99th
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: Worcester, MA
Worcester is a mid-sized U.S. city in Massachusetts, home to 205,501 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $67,544 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 14.4%. Typical homes in Worcester are valued around $339,500, and the median resident age is 34.1 years. Educational attainment runs 34.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 60.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 945 residential building permits were authorized in Worcester (Building Boom), up 1250% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Worcester reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 16.5 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 48.1°F with 48.3 inches of precipitation per year and 72.9 inches of snowfall.
Massachusetts carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Massachusetts scores 105.8 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,261 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Massachusetts run around $330, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Worcester workers runs 22.4 minutes, with 65.8% driving alone and 10.7% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 78.8 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Worcester'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 within-city variation to population change to work and mobility to schools and households to housing and income to climate and hazard context to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Worcester, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Worcester?
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 Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Springfield (154,751 residents, $51,339 income); Cambridge (117,794 residents, $126,469 income); Lowell (114,799 residents, $76,205 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cape Coral, FL (206,387 residents); Columbus, GA (204,383 residents); Salt Lake City, UT (203,888 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 can 191 Census tracts reveal inside Worcester?
PlainCities matches 191 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.
Is Worcester growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +11,414 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 945 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
What does the journey to work look like in Worcester?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 65.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 22.4 minutes.
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.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Worcester?
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 49 public schools within the city match. 34.1% 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
14.4%
Bachelor's degree+
34.1%
Matched public schools
49
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Worcester?
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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 14.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
5.0×
Home value
$339,500
Household income
$67,544
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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 48.1°F, with 48.3 inches of precipitation and 72.9 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Massachusetts is 78.8 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
78.8
Annual precipitation
48.3 in
Mean temperature
48.1°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Worcester?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 16.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 99% lower 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
16.5
Violent rate
16.5
Property rate
0.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 14.4% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
105.8 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, Massachusetts average
D
City profile score · Worcester, MA
48/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
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.
Violent crime A+
17 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B-
34.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income D
$67,544
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
14.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
105.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Worcester profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 93/100 (A+) · 17 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 65/100 (B-) · 34.1%
Household income: 46/100 (D) · $67,544
Poverty rate: 24/100 (F) · 14.4%
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Where Worcester sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Worcester'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 - Worcester highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Worcester, MA (this city): home $339,500, crime 17/100k
Columbus, GA : home $182,300, crime 2,839/100k
Salt Lake City, UT : home $495,700, crime 6,064/100k
Little Rock, AR : home $221,200, crime 6,886/100k
McKinney, TX : home $439,500, crime 933/100k
Springfield, MA : home $222,700, crime 3,727/100k
Cambridge, MA : home $1,040,500, crime 3,081/100k
Lowell, MA : home $395,100, crime 2,195/100k
Brockton, MA : home $405,500, crime 1,945/100k
Quincy, MA : home $598,100, crime 1,668/100k
Lynn, MA : home $472,600, crime 1,745/100k
How does Worcester compare to other US cities?
Where Worcester sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income46% higher than other cities
Home value70% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety99% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Massachusetts alone, Worcester ranks #1 of 149 Massachusetts cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Worcester against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Massachusetts only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Massachusetts-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Worcester near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Worcester ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Worcester only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#196 of 233
16th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#193 of 240
20th percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#20 of 247
92nd percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#178 of 247
28th percentile in Massachusetts
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 Massachusetts only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
46th percentile nationally for median household income · 99th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Worcester's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Worcester'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 Worcester's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$339,50030th percentilemore affordable than 30% 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
Worcester's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#12,932 of 15,516
More affordable than 17% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#68 of 117
Large cities (200,000–999,999)
At 5.0×, Worcester sits in the pressured band:
national rank #12,932 of 15,516 and #68 of 117large cities (200,000–999,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$67,544Worcester, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Worcester, MA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Worcester, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)34.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)14.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
205,501
Median Income
$67,544
Median Home Value
$339,500
Median Age
34.1
Poverty Rate
14.4%
Labor force participation
60.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
34.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
16.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
16.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
0.0
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
48.1°F
Annual Precipitation
48.3"
Annual Snowfall
72.9"
Schools
Total Schools
49
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Worcester's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
202,448 residents
2021
205,694 residents
2022
206,772 residents
2023
209,554 residents
2024
211,946 residents
2025
213,862 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
945
housing units authorized
Single-Family
75
detached homes
Multifamily
870
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
4.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
70
60
10
$10.7M
2020
70
62
8
$10.8M
2021
178
66
112
$27.6M
2022
812
94
718
$174.1M
2023
267
75
192
$45.5M
2024
945
75
870
$214.8M
Permit volume increased 1250% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
22.4 minutes
Drive Alone
65.8%
Carpool
11.6%
Public Transit
2.7%
Walk
5.5%
Work from Home
10.7%
Other
3.7%
Based on 100,375 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Massachusetts statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $330
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Massachusetts at $330 (electricity about $160 , water and sewer about $60 ).
These are Massachusetts statewide averages, not a meter reading for Worcester. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Massachusetts's BEA cost-of-living index is 105.8 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Worcester is $2,261/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Massachusetts statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 78.8 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Massachusetts statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Worcester sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Worcester compares to similar-size Massachusetts 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.