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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-HAWTHORNE-CA · Hawthorne, CA 85,933 pop · income 53rd 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 Hawthorne
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Hawthorne on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Bryan · lowest
56,861
Bryan · lowest
56,861 median HH income
28.8% of the leader · rank #1
Ball · near
72,713
Ball · near
72,713 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #2
Hawthorne · this city
72,719
Hawthorne · this city
72,719 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #3
Lamar · near
72,721
Lamar · near
72,721 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #4
St. Augustine… · near
72,724
St. Augustine… · near
72,724 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #5
Wrightsville · near
72,727
Wrightsville · near
72,727 median HH income
36.9% of the leader · rank #6
San Ramon · highest
197,358
San Ramon · highest
197,358 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 Hawthorne 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: 85,933.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Hawthorne - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Hawthorne lands in the 53rd percentile for household income and the 14th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
53rd
percentile, household income
95th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
14th
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: Hawthorne, CA
85,933 people live in Hawthorne, California - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Hawthorne households earn a median of $72,719 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 13.3%. Home values in Hawthorne run a median of $813,700, and the median resident age is 33.6 years. 25.0% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 63.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 12 residential building permits were authorized in Hawthorne (Construction Slowdown), down 61% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Hawthorne's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3192.5 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Hawthorne's yearly average temperature at 64.5°F with 11.8 inches of precipitation per year.
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. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. 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 Hawthorne'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 climate and hazard context to schools and households to housing and income to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Hawthorne, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, local building permits, matched public-school count.
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.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Hawthorne?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3192.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 40% higher 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.
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 64.5°F, with 11.8 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 Hawthorne?
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 21 public schools within the city match. 25.0% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Hawthorne?
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 Whittier (85,925 residents, $92,374 income); Livermore (85,870 residents, $153,602 income); Lake Forest (85,846 residents, $131,378 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Medford, OR (85,794 residents); Danbury, CT (86,086 residents); Melbourne, FL (85,718 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 Hawthorne?
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 11.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
11.2×
Home value
$813,700
Household income
$72,719
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 Hawthorne?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.3%. 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
70.3%
Work from home
9.4%
Public transit
4.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 40,971 workers age 16+.
Is Hawthorne growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -5,044 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -5.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 12 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
87,785
2025 estimate
82,741
Period change
-5.7%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 13.3% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Hawthorne, CA
28/100
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-
$72,719
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share D
25.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better 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.
Violent crime F
727 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Hawthorne profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 52/100 (C-) · $72,719
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 25.0%
Poverty rate: 27/100 (F) · 13.3%
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Violent crime: 4/100 (F) · 727 /100k
Where Hawthorne sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Hawthorne'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 - Hawthorne highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Hawthorne, CA (this city): home $813,700, crime 3,193/100k
Medford, OR : home $387,000, crime 4,324/100k
Danbury, CT : home $381,600, crime 1,519/100k
Bryan, TX : home $210,600, crime 1,833/100k
Sioux City, IA : home $162,600, crime 3,879/100k
Mission, TX : home $160,800, crime 1,338/100k
Whittier, CA : home $751,700, crime 2,866/100k
Livermore, CA : home $1,038,600, crime 2,560/100k
Lake Forest, CA : home $876,300, crime 975/100k
San Ramon, CA : home $1,359,100, crime 1,200/100k
Manteca, CA : home $561,200, crime 1,816/100k
Citrus Heights, CA : home $432,100, crime 2,566/100k
How does Hawthorne compare to other US cities?
Hawthorne measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income53% higher than other cities
Home value95% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety14% 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, Hawthorne ranks #379 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 Hawthorne 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 Hawthorne near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Hawthorne ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Hawthorne only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#881 of 1,338
34th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#354 of 1,343
74th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#351 of 1,450
76th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#747 of 1,458
49th 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
53rd percentile nationally for median household income · 14th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Hawthorne's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Hawthorne'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 Hawthorne's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$813,7005th percentilemore affordable than 5% 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
Hawthorne's home-value-to-income ratio: 11.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,428 of 15,516
More affordable than 1% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#741 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 11.2×, Hawthorne sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,428 of 15,516 and #741 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
$72,719Hawthorne, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Hawthorne, 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 Hawthorne, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
85,933
Median Income
$72,719
Median Home Value
$813,700
Median Age
33.6
Poverty Rate
13.3%
Labor force participation
63.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3192.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
727.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2465.2
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
64.5°F
Annual Precipitation
11.8"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
21
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Hawthorne's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
87,785 residents
2021
85,915 residents
2022
84,692 residents
2023
83,977 residents
2024
83,527 residents
2025
82,741 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
12
housing units authorized
Single-Family
12
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
31
26
5
$20.4M
2020
36
31
5
$25.6M
2021
36
31
5
$25.2M
2022
7
7
0
$0.9M
2023
13
13
0
$1.8M
2024
12
12
0
$1.6M
Permit volume decreased 61% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
70.3%
Carpool
10.5%
Public Transit
4.0%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
9.4%
Other
4.2%
Based on 40,971 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 Hawthorne. 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 Hawthorne 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 Hawthorne sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Hawthorne 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.