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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-CERRITOS-CA · Cerritos, CA 48,340 pop · income 91st 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 Cerritos
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Cerritos on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hattiesburg · lowest
44,140
Hattiesburg · lowest
44,140 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #1
Sunset Hills · near
133,895
Sunset Hills · near
133,895 median HH income
93.1% of the leader · rank #2
Cerritos · this city
133,953
Cerritos · this city
133,953 median HH income
93.1% of the leader · rank #3
Bishop · near
133,958
Bishop · near
133,958 median HH income
93.1% of the leader · rank #4
Eagleview · near
133,958
Eagleview · near
133,958 median HH income
93.1% of the leader · rank #5
Arcola · near
133,992
Arcola · near
133,992 median HH income
93.2% of the leader · rank #6
Poway · highest
143,825
Poway · highest
143,825 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 Cerritos 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: 48,340.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Cerritos - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Cerritos lands in the 91st percentile for household income and the 3rd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
91st
percentile, household income
96th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
3rd
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: Cerritos, CA
California's Cerritos is a small city, with 48,340 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $133,953 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 5.0%. Typical homes in Cerritos are valued around $908,600, and the median resident age is 47.0 years. 57.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 55.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 1 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Low Activity). Cerritos's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 5683.1 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, above the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
California carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,053 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 88.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Cerritos'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 reported crime to housing and income to population change to schools and households to work and mobility to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Cerritos, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, local building permits.
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. Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Cerritos?
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.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 5683.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 149% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
How far does income reach against housing in Cerritos?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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.
Is Cerritos growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -3,022 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -6.1% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Cerritos?
Within California, the closest population matches are Poway (48,515 residents, $143,825 income); San Luis Obispo (48,039 residents, $66,711 income); North Highlands (47,900 residents, $65,090 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hilo, HI (48,223 residents); Niagara Falls, NY (48,198 residents); Cleveland, TN (48,185 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.
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.
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 Cerritos?
The NCES join finds 17 public schools within the city match. 57.1% 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.
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.
Matched public schools
17
Bachelor's degree+
57.1%
Poverty estimate
5.0%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Cerritos?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.2%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
1.0%
Work from home
17.3%
Drive alone
70.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 21,798 workers age 16+.
Top-decile income · poverty 5.0% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C
City profile score · Cerritos, CA
56/100
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 A+
$133,953
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
57.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B-
5.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
350 /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.
Cerritos profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 91/100 (A+) · $133,953
Bachelor's+ share: 90/100 (A+) · 57.1%
Poverty rate: 65/100 (B-) · 5.0%
Violent crime: 26/100 (F) · 350 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Cerritos sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Cerritos'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 - Cerritos highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Cerritos, CA (this city): home $908,600, crime 5,683/100k
Niagara Falls, NY : home $104,400, crime 3,309/100k
Cleveland, TN : home $241,800, crime 2,837/100k
Hattiesburg, MS : home $153,600, crime 3,687/100k
Cedar Hill, TX : home $273,200, crime 1,953/100k
Poway, CA : home $971,500, crime 718/100k
San Luis Obispo, CA : home $896,500, crime 3,093/100k
Ceres, CA : home $397,200, crime 2,245/100k
Azusa, CA : home $607,400, crime 1,755/100k
How does Cerritos compare to other US cities?
Where Cerritos sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income91% higher than other cities
Home value96% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety3% 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 California alone, Cerritos ranks #429 of 441 California 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 Cerritos 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 Cerritos near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Cerritos ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Cerritos only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#243 of 1,338
82nd percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#282 of 1,343
79th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#840 of 1,450
41st percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#202 of 1,458
86th 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
91st percentile nationally for median household income · 3rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Cerritos's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Cerritos'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 Cerritos's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$908,6004th percentilemore affordable than 4% 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
Cerritos's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,576 of 15,516
More affordable than 6% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,083 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.8×, Cerritos sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,576 of 15,516 and #3,083 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
$133,953Cerritos, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Cerritos, 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 Cerritos, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)57.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
48,340
Median Income
$133,953
Median Home Value
$908,600
Median Age
47.0
Poverty Rate
5.0%
Labor force participation
55.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
57.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
5683.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
350.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
5332.8
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.
Schools
Total Schools
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Cerritos's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
49,389 residents
2021
48,327 residents
2022
47,594 residents
2023
47,119 residents
2024
46,825 residents
2025
46,367 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Low Activity
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
0
0
0
-
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
1
1
0
$0.1M
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
4
4
0
$0.5M
2024
1
1
0
$0.6M
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
70.2%
Carpool
9.9%
Public Transit
1.0%
Walk
0.5%
Work from Home
17.3%
Other
1.1%
Based on 21,798 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 Cerritos. 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 Cerritos 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 Cerritos sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Cerritos 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, 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.