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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-DESERT-HOT-SPRINGS-CA · Desert Hot Springs, CA 32,786 pop · income 20th 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 Desert Hot Springs
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Desert Hot Springs on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Edgar Springs · lowest
50,341
Edgar Springs · lowest
50,341 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #1
Orlovista · near
50,344
Orlovista · near
50,344 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #2
Hoisington · near
50,344
Hoisington · near
50,344 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #3
Desert Hot Sp… · this city
50,349
Desert Hot Sp… · this city
50,349 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #4
Vandergrift · near
50,351
Vandergrift · near
50,351 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #5
Maple Rapids · near
50,357
Maple Rapids · near
50,357 median HH income
24.2% of the leader · rank #6
Los Gatos · highest
207,891
Los Gatos · highest
207,891 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 Desert Hot Springs 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: 32,786.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Desert Hot Springs - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Desert Hot Springs places in the 20th percentile for household income and the 40th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
20th
percentile, household income
66th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
40th
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: Desert Hot Springs, CA
California's Desert Hot Springs is a small city, with 32,786 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Desert Hot Springs report a median income of $50,349 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.5%. Home values in Desert Hot Springs run a median of $309,300, and the median resident age is 34.4 years. About 15.9% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 58.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 118 residential building permits were authorized in Desert Hot Springs (Building Boom), up 436% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Desert Hot Springs reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1691.9 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects 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. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,053 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts California's average monthly utility costs around $275 (state average). Commute times here average 27.0 minutes, with 75.4% driving alone and 5.9% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 88.7 out of 100 (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Desert Hot Springs'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 housing and income to reported crime to work and mobility to schools and households to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Desert Hot Springs, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history.
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. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Desert Hot Springs?
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 Menlo Park (32,775 residents, $206,588 income); Los Gatos (32,773 residents, $207,891 income); Bell (32,830 residents, $60,641 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Brooklyn Center, MN (32,811 residents); Houma, LA (32,760 residents); Andover, MN (32,825 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 Desert Hot Springs?
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 6.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Desert Hot Springs?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1691.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 26% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Desert Hot Springs?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.4%. The reported mean trip to work is 27.0 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 Desert Hot Springs?
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 8 public schools within the city match. 15.9% 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.
Poverty estimate
15.5%
Bachelor's degree+
15.9%
Matched public schools
8
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Is Desert Hot Springs growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,462 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 118 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
32,547
2025 estimate
34,009
Period change
+4.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Desert Hot Springs, CA
18/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
15.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$50,349
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
492 /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.
Desert Hot Springs profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 23/100 (F) · 15.9%
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.5%
Household income: 21/100 (F) · $50,349
Violent crime: 16/100 (F) · 492 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Desert Hot Springs sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Desert Hot Springs'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 - Desert Hot Springs highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Desert Hot Springs, CA (this city): home $309,300, crime 1,692/100k
Brooklyn Center, MN : home $261,100, crime 3,368/100k
St. Charles, IL : home $369,700, crime 1,156/100k
Kaysville, UT : home $583,700, crime 629/100k
Menlo Park, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 2,010/100k
Los Gatos, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,580/100k
Bell, CA : home $561,400, crime 1,745/100k
Lathrop, CA : home $605,000, crime 1,723/100k
Goleta, CA : home $1,002,500, crime 1,774/100k
Dana Point, CA : home $1,200,900, crime 1,059/100k
How does Desert Hot Springs compare to other US cities?
Here's how Desert Hot Springs stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income20% higher than other cities
Home value66% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety40% 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: Desert Hot Springs ranks #181 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 Desert Hot Springs 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 Desert Hot Springs near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Desert Hot Springs ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Desert Hot Springs only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,181 of 1,338
12th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,050 of 1,343
22nd percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#282 of 1,450
80th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#1,013 of 1,458
30th 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
20th percentile nationally for median household income · 40th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Desert Hot Springs's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Desert Hot Springs'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 Desert Hot Springs's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$309,30034th percentilemore affordable than 34% 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
Desert Hot Springs's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,204 of 15,516
More affordable than 8% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,993 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.1×, Desert Hot Springs sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,204 of 15,516 and #2,993 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
$50,349Desert Hot Springs, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Desert Hot Springs, 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 Desert Hot Springs, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)15.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
32,786
Median Income
$50,349
Median Home Value
$309,300
Median Age
34.4
Poverty Rate
15.5%
Labor force participation
58.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
15.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1691.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
491.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1200.0
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.
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Desert Hot Springs's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
32,547 residents
2021
32,870 residents
2022
33,145 residents
2023
33,517 residents
2024
33,866 residents
2025
34,009 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
118
housing units authorized
Single-Family
104
detached homes
Multifamily
14
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
22
22
0
$5.4M
2020
77
77
0
$23.5M
2021
186
180
6
$35.9M
2022
157
143
14
$39.1M
2023
113
100
13
$28.4M
2024
118
104
14
$34.6M
Permit volume increased 436% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
27.0 minutes
Drive Alone
75.4%
Carpool
15.9%
Public Transit
1.7%
Walk
0.7%
Work from Home
5.9%
Based on 14,274 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 Desert Hot Springs. 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 Desert Hot Springs 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 Desert Hot Springs sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Desert Hot Springs 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.