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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-NEEDLES-CA · Needles, CA 4,882 pop · income 8th 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 Needles
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Needles on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Chula Vista C… · lowest
33,750
Chula Vista C… · lowest
33,750 median HH income
18.7% of the leader · rank #1
Salamanca · near
39,871
Salamanca · near
39,871 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #2
Mount Airy · near
39,873
Mount Airy · near
39,873 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #3
Needles · this city
39,876
Needles · this city
39,876 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #4
Jewell · near
39,878
Jewell · near
39,878 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #5
Bel-Ridge · near
39,878
Bel-Ridge · near
39,878 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #6
Harrington Pa… · highest
180,515
Harrington Pa… · highest
180,515 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 Needles 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: 4,882.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Needles - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Needles lands in the 8th percentile for household income and the 13th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
8th
percentile, household income
22nd
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
13th
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: Needles, CA
4,882 people live in Needles, California - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $39,876 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 25.1%. Needles's housing stock carries a median value of $134,400, and the median resident age is 49.6 years. About 9.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 34.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 3 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Stable), up 0% from five years earlier. Needles's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 3277.7 crimes per 100,000 residents, above the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 76.2°F with 4.3 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. 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 Needles'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 schools and households to housing and income to climate and hazard context 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 Needles, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, 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.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Needles?
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 5 public schools within the city match. 9.2% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Needles?
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. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 25.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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 76.2°F, with 4.3 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Needles?
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 Goshen (4,895 residents, $72,813 income); Twin Lakes CDP (Santa Cruz County) (4,895 residents, $81,288 income); Wrightwood (4,907 residents, $78,496 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Kimberly, ID (4,883 residents); Baldwin City, KS (4,881 residents); Harrington Park, NJ (4,883 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 Needles?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 83.3%. 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
83.3%
Work from home
5.0%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,432 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Needles?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3277.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 44% 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.
Total reported rate
3277.7
Violent rate
918.6
Property rate
2359.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -109 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 3 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
4,930
2025 estimate
4,821
Period change
-2.2%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 25.1% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Needles, CA
5/100
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 F
$39,876
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
25.1%
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
9.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
919 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Needles profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 7/100 (F) · $39,876
Poverty rate: 6/100 (F) · 25.1%
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Bachelor's+ share: 4/100 (F) · 9.2%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 919 /100k
Where Needles sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Needles'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 - Needles highlighted among 26 peers.Read the chart values
Needles, CA (this city): home $134,400, crime 3,278/100k
Kimberly, ID : home $289,500, crime 409/100k
Baldwin City, KS : home $242,100, crime 1,309/100k
Harrington Park, NJ : home $709,200, crime 212/100k
Indian Wells, CA : home $1,002,200, crime 1,616/100k
Willits, CA : home $306,800, crime 625/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Needles compare to other US cities?
Where Needles sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income8% higher than other cities
Home value22% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety13% 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, Needles ranks #383 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 Needles 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 Needles near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Needles ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Needles only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,286 of 1,338
4th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,312 of 1,343
2nd percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#128 of 1,450
91st percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#1,232 of 1,458
15th 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
8th percentile nationally for median household income · 13th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Needles's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Needles'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 Needles's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$134,400Among the most affordablemore affordable than 78% 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
Needles's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,438 of 15,516
More affordable than 46% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#6,871 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.4×, Needles sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,438 of 15,516 and #6,871 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
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
$39,876Needles, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Needles, 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 Needles, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)9.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)25.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)34.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,882
Median Income
$39,876
Median Home Value
$134,400
Median Age
49.6
Poverty Rate
25.1%
Labor force participation
34.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
9.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3277.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
918.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2359.1
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
76.2°F
Annual Precipitation
4.3"
Annual Snowfall
0.0"
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Needles's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,930 residents
2021
4,912 residents
2022
4,878 residents
2023
4,860 residents
2024
4,851 residents
2025
4,821 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Stable
Total Permits (2024)
3
housing units authorized
Single-Family
3
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
3
3
0
$1.3M
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
1
1
0
$0.4M
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
1
1
0
$0.4M
2024
3
3
0
$0.6M
Permit volume increased 0% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
83.3%
Carpool
9.3%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
2.1%
Work from Home
5.0%
Based on 1,432 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 Needles. 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 Needles 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 Needles sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Needles 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.