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Place dossier plate
SheetAZ-SUN-LAKES-AZ · Sun Lakes, AZ 14,079 pop · income 41st pct
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 Sun Lakes
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Sun Lakes on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
New Kingman-B… · lowest
42,604
New Kingman-B… · lowest
42,604 median HH income
20.4% of the leader · rank #1
Durand · near
63,542
Durand · near
63,542 median HH income
30.5% of the leader · rank #2
Clifford · near
63,542
Clifford · near
63,542 median HH income
30.5% of the leader · rank #3
Belton · near
63,544
Belton · near
63,544 median HH income
30.5% of the leader · rank #4
Sun Lakes · this city
63,545
Sun Lakes · this city
63,545 median HH income
30.5% of the leader · rank #5
Morganfield · near
63,546
Morganfield · near
63,546 median HH income
30.5% of the leader · rank #6
Mill Valley · highest
208,466
Mill Valley · highest
208,466 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
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Sun Lakes on ACS population and median household income
. 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: 14,079.
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Sun Lakes lands in the 41st percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
41st
percentile, household income
79th
percentile, home value
64th
percentile, median rent
📝 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: Sun Lakes, AZ
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 14,079 residents in Sun Lakes, a small town within Arizona. Sun Lakes households earn a median of $63,545 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.6%. Typical homes in Sun Lakes are valued around $425,500, and the median resident age is 73.4 years. Educational attainment runs 39.8% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 20.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The city is served by 1 public schools according to NCES Common Core of Data.
Arizona tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Arizona scores 100.7 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,419 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $215 across Arizona, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Sun Lakes report an average commute of 17.7 minutes, with 69.8% driving alone and 21.2% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 84.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Sun Lakes'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 schools and households to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Sun Lakes, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Sun Lakes?
The matched institution count is small, so district boundaries and schools outside the city line may matter more than the municipal count suggests. Use the number as a coverage cue, then verify attendance zones with the district before making a household decision.
The NCES join finds 1 public school within the city match. 39.8% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Sun Lakes?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 69.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 17.7 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. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Which cities make useful reference points for Sun Lakes?
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.
Within Arizona, the closest population matches are Sierra Vista Southeast (14,213 residents, $70,958 income); New Kingman-Butler (14,281 residents, $42,604 income); Valencia West (13,834 residents, $90,758 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Lakewood Park, FL (14,077 residents); Colesville, MD (14,075 residents); Lakeland, TN (14,068 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 Sun Lakes?
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 6.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Below median income · poverty 6.6% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.7 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Arizona average
C-
City profile score · Sun Lakes, AZ
50/100
4 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.
Bachelor's+ share B+
39.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C
6.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income D
$63,545
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cost of living F
100.7 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 N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Sun Lakes profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 75/100 (B+) · 39.8%
Poverty rate: 55/100 (C) · 6.6%
Household income: 40/100 (D) · $63,545
Cost of living: 37/100 (F) · 100.7 index
How does Sun Lakes compare to other US cities?
Where Sun Lakes sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income41% higher than other cities
Home value79% pricier than other cities
Median rent64% pricier than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Sun Lakes against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arizona only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arizona-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Sun Lakes near the bottom of Arizona's cities
Among the 394 Arizona cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Sun Lakes ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Sun Lakes only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#134 of 333
60th percentile in Arizona
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 394
0th percentile in Arizona
Median Home Value
#41 of 327
87th percentile in Arizona
Poverty Rate
#228 of 393
42nd percentile in Arizona
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#50 of 394
87th percentile in Arizona
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 Arizona only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
41st percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Sun Lakes's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$425,50021st percentilemore affordable than 21% 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
Sun Lakes's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,527 of 15,516
More affordable than 6% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,074 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.7×, Sun Lakes sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,527 of 15,516 and #3,074 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$63,545Sun Lakes, AZ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Sun Lakes, AZ median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Sun Lakes, AZ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)39.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)20.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,079
Median Income
$63,545
Median Home Value
$425,500
Median Age
73.4
Poverty Rate
6.6%
Labor force participation
20.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
39.8%
Schools
Total Schools
1
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
17.7 minutes
Drive Alone
69.8%
Carpool
1.8%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
21.2%
Other
7.2%
Based on 2,761 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arizona statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $215
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arizona at $215 (electricity about $131 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Arizona statewide averages, not a meter reading for Sun Lakes. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arizona's BEA cost-of-living index is 100.7 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Sun Lakes is $1,419/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arizona statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 84.5 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arizona statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Sun Lakes sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Sun Lakes compares to similar-size Arizona 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, NCES CCD, 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.