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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-BLYTHE-CA · Blythe, CA 17,824 pop · income 23rd 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 Blythe
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Blythe on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Guayama zona… · lowest
21,010
Guayama zona… · lowest
21,010 median HH income
19.1% of the leader · rank #1
Preston Heigh… · near
51,970
Preston Heigh… · near
51,970 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #2
Mallow · near
51,979
Mallow · near
51,979 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #3
Blythe · this city
51,984
Blythe · this city
51,984 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #4
Quanah · near
51,985
Quanah · near
51,985 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #5
Wildwood · near
51,996
Wildwood · near
51,996 median HH income
47.3% of the leader · rank #6
Rancho Mirage · highest
109,943
Rancho Mirage · highest
109,943 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 Blythe 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: 17,824.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Blythe - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Blythe lands in the 23rd percentile for household income and the 46th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
23rd
percentile, household income
44th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
46th
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: Blythe, CA
California's Blythe is a small town, with 17,824 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $51,984 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.4%. Typical homes in Blythe are valued around $203,800, and the median resident age is 36.6 years. 8.9% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 30.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 0 residential units were authorized in 2024 (No Permits), down 100% from five years earlier. Blythe reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1494.7 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 74.4°F with 3.6 inches of precipitation per year.
California carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts California at 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Above Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,053 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Blythe report an average commute of 16.5 minutes, with 77.7% driving alone and 2.8% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 88.7 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Blythe'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 climate and hazard context to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Blythe, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Blythe?
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 74.4°F, with 3.6 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for California is 88.7 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.
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 5 public schools within the city match. 8.9% 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 can the FBI record say about safety in Blythe?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1494.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 34% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Blythe?
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 California, the closest population matches are Stanford (17,958 residents, $70,651 income); Phelan (18,059 residents, $83,759 income); South San Jose Hills (17,451 residents, $94,740 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hope Mills, NC (17,823 residents); Bay City, TX (17,816 residents); Guayama zona urbana, PR (17,815 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.
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 Blythe?
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 3.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.9×
Home value
$203,800
Household income
$51,984
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Blythe?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 77.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.5 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.
Drive alone
77.7%
Work from home
2.8%
Public transit
1.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 4,463 workers age 16+.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -2,774 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -15.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 0 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
17,816
2025 estimate
15,042
Period change
-15.6%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Blythe, CA
16/100
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.
Household income F
$51,984
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
404 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
110.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
8.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Blythe profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 23/100 (F) · $51,984
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.4%
Violent crime: 22/100 (F) · 404 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Bachelor's+ share: 3/100 (F) · 8.9%
Where Blythe sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Blythe'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 - Blythe highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Blythe, CA (this city): home $203,800, crime 1,495/100k
Bay City, TX : home $149,800, crime 3,424/100k
Anacortes, WA : home $647,700, crime 1,589/100k
Southbridge, MA : home $267,000, crime 1,001/100k
Rancho Mirage, CA : home $747,800, crime 2,581/100k
Coalinga, CA : home $254,600, crime 902/100k
Laguna Woods, CA : home $364,900, crime 953/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Blythe compare to other US cities?
Here's how Blythe stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income23% higher than other cities
Home value44% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety46% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just California and the picture shifts: Blythe ranks #140 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Blythe against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to California only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
California-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Blythe near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Blythe ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Blythe only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,158 of 1,338
13th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,253 of 1,343
7th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#290 of 1,450
80th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#1,241 of 1,458
15th percentile in California
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 California only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
23rd percentile nationally for median household income · 46th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Blythe's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Blythe'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 Blythe's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$203,800Among the most affordablemore affordable than 56% 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
Blythe's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,460 of 15,516
More affordable than 33% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,916 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.9×, Blythe sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,460 of 15,516 and #1,916 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
$51,984Blythe, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Blythe, CA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Blythe, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)8.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)30.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
17,824
Median Income
$51,984
Median Home Value
$203,800
Median Age
36.6
Poverty Rate
15.4%
Labor force participation
30.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
8.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1494.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
404.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1090.6
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
74.4°F
Annual Precipitation
3.6"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Blythe's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,816 residents
2021
17,136 residents
2022
17,029 residents
2023
17,914 residents
2024
15,901 residents
2025
15,042 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
Total Permits (2024)
0
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1
1
0
$0.3M
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
2
2
0
$0.9M
2022
1
1
0
$0.2M
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
0
0
0
-
Permit volume decreased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.5 minutes
Drive Alone
77.7%
Carpool
14.7%
Public Transit
1.0%
Walk
2.6%
Work from Home
2.8%
Other
1.2%
Based on 4,463 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
California statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $275
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across California at $275 (electricity about $150 , water and sewer about $70 ).
These are California statewide averages, not a meter reading for Blythe. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
California's BEA cost-of-living index is 110.7 (Well Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Blythe is $2,053/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to California statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 88.7 / 100 (Very High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a California statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Blythe sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Blythe compares to similar-size California 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.