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Place dossier plate
SheetAR-PARAGOULD-AR · Paragould, AR 29,940 pop · income 29th pct · 12 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 Paragould
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Paragould on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Jacksonville · lowest
46,947
Jacksonville · lowest
46,947 median HH income
18.8% of the leader · rank #1
Bentleyville · near
56,179
Bentleyville · near
56,179 median HH income
22.5% of the leader · rank #2
Paragould · this city
56,181
Paragould · this city
56,181 median HH income
22.5% of the leader · rank #3
Willow · near
56,181
Willow · near
56,181 median HH income
22.5% of the leader · rank #4
Vicksburg · near
56,184
Vicksburg · near
56,184 median HH income
22.5% of the leader · rank #5
Fairport Harb… · near
56,184
Fairport Harb… · near
56,184 median HH income
22.5% of the leader · rank #6
Wellesley · highest
250,001
Wellesley · highest
250,001 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 Paragould 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: 29,940.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Paragould - the verdict
Paragould ranks in the 29th percentile for household income and the 8th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
29th
percentile, household income
35th
percentile, home value
3rd
percentile, median rent
8th
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: Paragould, AR
Paragould is a small city in Arkansas, home to 29,940 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Paragould report a median income of $56,181 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 12.6%. Paragould's housing stock carries a median value of $175,400, and the median resident age is 36.2 years. 16.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 54.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 245 residential building permits were authorized in Paragould (Growing), up 16% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Paragould's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 3813.2 crimes per 100,000 residents, above the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 59.7°F with 51.7 inches of precipitation per year and 2.5 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Arkansas run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Arkansas at 86.9 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $944 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $210 across Arkansas, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 55.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Paragould'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 work and mobility to comparison shortlist to housing and income to reported crime to climate and hazard context to within-city variation to population change to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Paragould, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Paragould?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 85.1%. 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. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
Which cities make useful reference points for Paragould?
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 Arkansas, the closest population matches are Texarkana (29,343 residents, $47,930 income); Jacksonville (29,285 residents, $46,947 income); Russellville (29,057 residents, $48,708 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fridley, MN (29,944 residents); Greenville, TX (29,936 residents); Winter Park, FL (29,929 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Paragould?
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 3.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 12.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What can 12 Census tracts reveal inside Paragould?
PlainCities matches 12 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Paragould?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3813.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 67% 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
3813.2
Violent rate
915.2
Property rate
2898.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 59.7°F, with 51.7 inches of precipitation and 2.5 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Arkansas is 55.5 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)
55.5
Annual precipitation
51.7 in
Mean temperature
59.7°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Paragould growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,477 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 245 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.
2020 estimate
29,658
2025 estimate
31,135
Period change
+5.0%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the education layer cover for Paragould?
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 13 public schools within the city match. 16.3% 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
12.6%
Bachelor's degree+
16.3%
Matched public schools
13
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Below median income · poverty 12.6% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
86.9 (US=100)
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Arkansas average
F
City profile score · Paragould, AR
36/100
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.
Cost of living A+
86.9 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Household income F
$56,181
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
12.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
16.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
915 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Paragould profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 86.9 index
Household income: 29/100 (F) · $56,181
Poverty rate: 29/100 (F) · 12.6%
Bachelor's+ share: 24/100 (F) · 16.3%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 915 /100k
Where Paragould sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Paragould'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 - Paragould highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Paragould, AR (this city): home $175,400, crime 3,813/100k
Fridley, MN : home $277,100, crime 3,327/100k
Greenville, TX : home $197,400, crime 1,424/100k
Winter Park, FL : home $676,800, crime 2,181/100k
Matthews, NC : home $406,800, crime 2,839/100k
Wellesley, MA : home $1,513,400, crime 532/100k
Algonquin, IL : home $324,000, crime 1,238/100k
Texarkana, AR : home $162,700, crime 4,398/100k
Jacksonville, AR : home $155,300, crime 4,911/100k
Russellville, AR : home $166,500, crime 1,734/100k
Bella Vista, AR : home $262,400, crime 691/100k
Sherwood, AR : home $190,900, crime 2,571/100k
Cabot, AR : home $197,000, crime 1,668/100k
How does Paragould compare to other US cities?
Here's how Paragould stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income29% higher than other cities
Home value35% pricier than other cities
Median rent3% pricier than other cities
Safety8% 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 Arkansas alone, Paragould ranks #142 of 160 Arkansas 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 Paragould against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arkansas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arkansas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Paragould near the bottom of Arkansas's cities
Among the 524 Arkansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Paragould ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Paragould only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#171 of 495
65th percentile in Arkansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 524
0th percentile in Arkansas
Median Home Value
#86 of 482
82nd percentile in Arkansas
Poverty Rate
#269 of 524
48th percentile in Arkansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#187 of 524
64th percentile in Arkansas
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 Arkansas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
29th percentile nationally for median household income · 8th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Paragould's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Paragould'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 Paragould's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$175,400Among the most affordablemore affordable than 65% 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
Paragould's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,299 of 15,516
More affordable than 53% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,076 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.1×, Paragould sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,299 of 15,516 and #1,076 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$56,181Paragould, AR median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Paragould, AR median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Paragould, AR.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)16.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)12.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)54.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
29,940
Median Income
$56,181
Median Home Value
$175,400
Median Age
36.2
Poverty Rate
12.6%
Labor force participation
54.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
16.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3813.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
915.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2898.0
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
59.7°F
Annual Precipitation
51.7"
Annual Snowfall
2.5"
Schools
Total Schools
13
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Paragould's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
29,658 residents
2021
30,009 residents
2022
30,124 residents
2023
30,546 residents
2024
30,742 residents
2025
31,135 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Growing
Total Permits (2024)
245
housing units authorized
Single-Family
92
detached homes
Multifamily
153
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
8.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
212
106
106
$22.6M
2020
146
118
28
$20.0M
2021
184
156
28
$27.4M
2022
262
138
124
$36.4M
2023
106
52
54
$14.0M
2024
245
92
153
$30.4M
Permit volume increased 16% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
85.1%
Carpool
8.0%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
2.2%
Work from Home
3.0%
Other
1.5%
Based on 12,608 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arkansas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $210
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arkansas at $210 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Arkansas statewide averages, not a meter reading for Paragould. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arkansas's BEA cost-of-living index is 86.9 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Paragould is $944/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arkansas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 55.5 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arkansas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Paragould sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Paragould compares to similar-size Arkansas 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.