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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-HUNTINGTON-BEACH-CA · Huntington Beach, CA 196,010 pop · income 87th 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 Huntington Beach
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Huntington Beach on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Knoxville · lowest
50,994
Knoxville · lowest
50,994 median HH income
41.7% of the leader · rank #1
Sisco Heights · near
119,871
Sisco Heights · near
119,871 median HH income
98.1% of the leader · rank #2
Aspinwall · near
119,875
Aspinwall · near
119,875 median HH income
98.1% of the leader · rank #3
Pingree Grove · near
119,880
Pingree Grove · near
119,880 median HH income
98.1% of the leader · rank #4
Oswego · near
119,881
Oswego · near
119,881 median HH income
98.1% of the leader · rank #5
Huntington Be… · this city
119,885
Huntington Be… · this city
119,885 median HH income
98.1% of the leader · rank #6
Elk Grove · highest
122,229
Elk Grove · highest
122,229 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 Huntington Beach 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: 196,010.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Huntington Beach - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Huntington Beach places in the 87th percentile for household income and the 28th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
87th
percentile, household income
97th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
28th
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: Huntington Beach, CA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 196,010 residents in Huntington Beach, a mid-sized U.S. city within California. The typical household in Huntington Beach brings in $119,885 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.6%. Home values in Huntington Beach run a median of $1,047,300, and the median resident age is 43.4 years. Educational attainment runs 47.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 62.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 423 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 156% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2196.4 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
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. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Huntington Beach workers runs 23.1 minutes, with 70.6% driving alone and 19.4% 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 Huntington Beach'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 work and mobility to schools and households to reported crime to comparison shortlist to housing and income to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Huntington Beach, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, 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.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Huntington Beach?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 23.1 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. 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.
What does the education layer cover for Huntington Beach?
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 32 public schools within the city match. 47.2% 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 Huntington Beach?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2196.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 4% 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 Huntington Beach?
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 Glendale (192,270 residents, $84,262 income); Oxnard (201,014 residents, $93,372 income); Moreno Valley (210,378 residents, $87,477 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Overland Park, KS (197,199 residents); Sioux Falls, SD (197,642 residents); Peoria, AZ (194,338 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 Huntington Beach?
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 8.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
8.7×
Home value
$1,047,300
Household income
$119,885
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Huntington Beach growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -7,029 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -3.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 423 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
198,480
2025 estimate
191,451
Period change
-3.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C
City profile score · Huntington Beach, CA
58/100
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
$119,885
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A-
47.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B-
4.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
207 /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.
Huntington Beach profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 86/100 (A) · $119,885
Bachelor's+ share: 81/100 (A-) · 47.2%
Poverty rate: 68/100 (B-) · 4.6%
Violent crime: 47/100 (D) · 207 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Huntington Beach sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Huntington Beach'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 - Huntington Beach highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Huntington Beach, CA (this city): home $1,047,300, crime 2,196/100k
Overland Park, KS : home $384,400, crime 1,946/100k
Sioux Falls, SD : home $271,400, crime 3,442/100k
Peoria, AZ : home $429,400, crime 1,460/100k
Grand Rapids, MI : home $225,500, crime 3,391/100k
Knoxville, TN : home $214,000, crime 3,462/100k
Montgomery, AL : home $148,500, crime 2,830/100k
Glendale, CA : home $1,043,900, crime 2,314/100k
Oxnard, CA : home $617,800, crime 2,474/100k
Moreno Valley, CA : home $461,400, crime 1,938/100k
Fontana, CA : home $558,500, crime 1,487/100k
Ontario, CA : home $568,000, crime 2,090/100k
Elk Grove, CA : home $603,400, crime 1,422/100k
How does Huntington Beach compare to other US cities?
Huntington Beach measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income87% higher than other cities
Home value97% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety28% 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, Huntington Beach ranks #276 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 Huntington Beach 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 Huntington Beach near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Huntington Beach ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Huntington Beach only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#329 of 1,338
75th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#213 of 1,343
84th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#884 of 1,450
38th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#308 of 1,458
79th 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
87th percentile nationally for median household income · 28th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Huntington Beach's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Huntington Beach'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 Huntington Beach's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,047,3003rd percentilemore affordable than 3% 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
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,203 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#708 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 8.7×, Huntington Beach sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,203 of 15,516 and #708 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
$119,885Huntington Beach, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Huntington Beach, 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 Huntington Beach, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)47.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
196,010
Median Income
$119,885
Median Home Value
$1,047,300
Median Age
43.4
Poverty Rate
4.6%
Labor force participation
62.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
47.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2196.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
207.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1989.2
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.
Schools
Total Schools
32
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Huntington Beach's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
198,480 residents
2021
196,505 residents
2022
194,654 residents
2023
193,011 residents
2024
192,619 residents
2025
191,451 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
423
housing units authorized
Single-Family
226
detached homes
Multifamily
197
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
165
154
11
$59.4M
2020
124
104
20
$36.9M
2021
162
100
62
$39.6M
2022
231
126
105
$54.9M
2023
591
231
360
$171.4M
2024
423
226
197
$119.6M
Permit volume increased 156% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
23.1 minutes
Drive Alone
70.6%
Carpool
6.6%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
19.4%
Other
1.4%
Based on 101,009 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 Huntington Beach. 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 Huntington Beach 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 Huntington Beach sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Huntington Beach 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.