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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-ESCONDIDO-CA · Escondido, CA 149,913 pop · income 66th 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 Escondido
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Escondido on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Jackson · lowest
43,238
Jackson · lowest
43,238 median HH income
23.8% of the leader · rank #1
South St. Paul · near
84,472
South St. Paul · near
84,472 median HH income
46.4% of the leader · rank #2
DeWitt · near
84,474
DeWitt · near
84,474 median HH income
46.4% of the leader · rank #3
Escondido · this city
84,477
Escondido · this city
84,477 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #4
Sturtevant · near
84,479
Sturtevant · near
84,479 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #5
Bangor Base · near
84,485
Bangor Base · near
84,485 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #6
Sunnyvale · highest
181,862
Sunnyvale · highest
181,862 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 Escondido 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: 149,913.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Escondido - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Escondido lands in the 66th percentile for household income and the 34th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
66th
percentile, household income
92nd
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
34th
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: Escondido, CA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 149,913 residents in Escondido, a mid-sized U.S. city within California. The typical household in Escondido brings in $84,477 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.9%. Home values in Escondido run a median of $663,500, and the median resident age is 37.1 years. About 27.8% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 60.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 395 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 1617% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1918.9 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Escondido's yearly average temperature at 65.8°F with 14.5 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). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,053 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. 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 Escondido'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 housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to reported crime to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Escondido, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count, 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. Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Escondido?
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 65.8°F, with 14.5 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.
What does the education layer cover for Escondido?
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 39 public schools within the city match. 27.8% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Escondido?
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 7.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Escondido?
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 Pomona (148,391 residents, $78,869 income); Roseville (152,438 residents, $117,354 income); Sunnyvale (153,455 residents, $181,862 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Jackson, MS (149,827 residents); Joliet, IL (149,785 residents); Surprise, AZ (149,519 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Escondido?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 72.0%. 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. 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
72.0%
Work from home
12.8%
Public transit
1.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 71,656 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Escondido?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1918.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 16% 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.
Total reported rate
1918.9
Violent rate
433.5
Property rate
1485.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Escondido growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -4,944 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -3.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 395 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
150,974
2025 estimate
146,030
Period change
-3.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 9.9% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Escondido, CA
37/100
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 C+
$84,477
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share C-
27.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
434 /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.
Escondido profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 64/100 (C+) · $84,477
Bachelor's+ share: 54/100 (C-) · 27.8%
Poverty rate: 40/100 (D) · 9.9%
Violent crime: 20/100 (F) · 434 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Escondido sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Escondido'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 - Escondido highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Escondido, CA (this city): home $663,500, crime 1,919/100k
Joliet, IL : home $248,600, crime 1,595/100k
Surprise, AZ : home $396,000, crime 985/100k
Naperville, IL : home $509,900, crime 967/100k
Pasadena, TX : home $193,600, crime 2,918/100k
Mesquite, TX : home $226,500, crime 3,478/100k
Pomona, CA : home $569,600, crime 3,469/100k
Roseville, CA : home $630,600, crime 1,640/100k
Sunnyvale, CA : home $1,816,600, crime 2,154/100k
Torrance, CA : home $1,036,600, crime 3,087/100k
Visalia, CA : home $340,600, crime 2,566/100k
Fullerton, CA : home $859,600, crime 2,479/100k
How does Escondido compare to other US cities?
Escondido measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income66% higher than other cities
Home value92% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety34% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at California, Escondido ranks #223 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Escondido 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 Escondido near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Escondido ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Escondido only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#707 of 1,338
47th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#483 of 1,343
64th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#500 of 1,450
65th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#665 of 1,458
54th 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
66th percentile nationally for median household income · 34th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Escondido's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Escondido'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 Escondido's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$663,5008th percentilemore affordable than 8% 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
Escondido's home-value-to-income ratio: 7.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,964 of 15,516
More affordable than 4% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#686 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 7.9×, Escondido sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,964 of 15,516 and #686 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$84,477Escondido, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Escondido, 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 Escondido, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)27.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
149,913
Median Income
$84,477
Median Home Value
$663,500
Median Age
37.1
Poverty Rate
9.9%
Labor force participation
60.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
27.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1918.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
433.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1485.4
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
65.8°F
Annual Precipitation
14.5"
Annual Snowfall
0.0"
Schools
Total Schools
39
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Escondido's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
150,974 residents
2021
150,171 residents
2022
149,207 residents
2023
148,594 residents
2024
147,858 residents
2025
146,030 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
395
housing units authorized
Single-Family
168
detached homes
Multifamily
227
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
23
23
0
$3.8M
2020
254
240
14
$48.1M
2021
432
338
94
$125.3M
2022
228
165
63
$57.4M
2023
593
103
490
$125.1M
2024
395
168
227
$99.1M
Permit volume increased 1617% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
72.0%
Carpool
9.8%
Public Transit
1.5%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
12.8%
Other
2.3%
Based on 71,656 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 Escondido. 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 Escondido 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 Escondido sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Escondido 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.