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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-MODESTO-CA · Modesto, CA 218,614 pop · income 59th pct · 112 tracts
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 Modesto
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Modesto on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Baton Rouge · lowest
49,944
Baton Rouge · lowest
49,944 median HH income
28.3% of the leader · rank #1
Baldwin · near
77,882
Baldwin · near
77,882 median HH income
44.2% of the leader · rank #2
Highland · near
77,886
Highland · near
77,886 median HH income
44.2% of the leader · rank #3
Montrose Manor · near
77,898
Montrose Manor · near
77,898 median HH income
44.2% of the leader · rank #4
Modesto · this city
77,899
Modesto · this city
77,899 median HH income
44.2% of the leader · rank #5
Fairfield · near
77,917
Fairfield · near
77,917 median HH income
44.2% of the leader · rank #6
Fremont · highest
176,350
Fremont · highest
176,350 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 Modesto 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: 218,614.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Modesto - the verdict
Modesto ranks in the 59th percentile for household income and the 15th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
59th
percentile, household income
79th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
15th
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: Modesto, CA
218,614 people live in Modesto, California - a mid-sized U.S. city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Modesto households earn a median of $77,899 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 10.0%. Home values in Modesto run a median of $415,600, and the median resident age is 35.4 years. 20.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 57.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 173 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Slowing), down 13% from five years earlier. Modesto's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3070.5 in FBI UCR data, above 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). 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 Modesto'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 within-city variation to schools and households to comparison shortlist to reported crime to population change to housing and income to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Modesto, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Within-city variation
What can 112 Census tracts reveal inside Modesto?
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
PlainCities matches 112 Census tracts to this city.
The NCES join finds 78 public schools within the city match. 20.3% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Modesto?
Within California, the closest population matches are San Bernardino (221,774 residents, $63,988 income); Fontana (211,921 residents, $98,187 income); Moreno Valley (210,378 residents, $87,477 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Huntsville, AL (218,814 residents); Spring Valley, NV (219,913 residents); Port St. Lucie, FL (220,453 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Modesto?
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 3070.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 35% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
Population change
Is Modesto growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +961 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 173 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+0.4%
2025 estimate
219,652
2020 estimate
218,691
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Modesto?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 10.0%, 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.
Household income
$77,899
Home value
$415,600
Value / income
5.3×
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 Modesto?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 76.6%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
1.1%
Work from home
7.3%
Drive alone
76.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 92,376 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 10.0% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Modesto, CA
30/100
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
$77,899
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate D
10.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
656 /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.
Modesto profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 57/100 (C) · $77,899
Poverty rate: 40/100 (D) · 10.0%
Bachelor's+ share: 35/100 (F) · 20.3%
Violent crime: 7/100 (F) · 656 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Modesto sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Modesto'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 - Modesto highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Modesto, CA (this city): home $415,600, crime 3,071/100k
Huntsville, AL : home $263,100, crime 2,872/100k
Tacoma, WA : home $454,600, crime 6,667/100k
San Bernardino, CA : home $384,900, crime 3,795/100k
Fontana, CA : home $558,500, crime 1,487/100k
Moreno Valley, CA : home $461,400, crime 1,938/100k
Fremont, CA : home $1,289,400, crime 2,523/100k
Santa Clarita, CA : home $721,000, crime 1,342/100k
Oxnard, CA : home $617,800, crime 2,474/100k
How does Modesto compare to other US cities?
Here's how Modesto stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income59% higher than other cities
Home value79% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety15% 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, Modesto ranks #363 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 Modesto 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 Modesto near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Modesto ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Modesto only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#813 of 1,338
39th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#841 of 1,343
37th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#490 of 1,450
66th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#890 of 1,458
39th 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
59th percentile nationally for median household income · 15th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Modesto's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Modesto'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 Modesto's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$415,60021st percentilemore affordable than 21% 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
Modesto's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,363 of 15,516
More affordable than 14% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#79 of 117
Large cities (200,000–999,999)
At 5.3×, Modesto sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,363 of 15,516 and #79 of 117large cities (200,000–999,999).
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
$77,899Modesto, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Modesto, 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 Modesto, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)10.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
218,614
Median Income
$77,899
Median Home Value
$415,600
Median Age
35.4
Poverty Rate
10.0%
Labor force participation
57.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3070.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
655.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2414.7
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
78
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Modesto's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
218,691 residents
2021
218,688 residents
2022
218,574 residents
2023
219,600 residents
2024
220,315 residents
2025
219,652 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
173
housing units authorized
Single-Family
159
detached homes
Multifamily
14
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
198
195
3
$54.7M
2020
217
213
4
$59.9M
2021
311
191
120
$43.6M
2022
271
236
35
$35.4M
2023
273
211
62
$36.1M
2024
173
159
14
$25.8M
Permit volume decreased 13% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
76.6%
Carpool
12.1%
Public Transit
1.1%
Walk
1.2%
Work from Home
7.3%
Other
1.7%
Based on 92,376 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 Modesto. 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 Modesto 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 Modesto sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Modesto 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.