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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SAN-JOSE-CA · San Jose, CA 990,054 pop · income 93rd pct · 408 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 San Jose
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest San Jose on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Indianapolis · lowest
62,995
Indianapolis · lowest
62,995 median HH income
44.5% of the leader · rank #1
Brewster Heig… · near
141,563
Brewster Heig… · near
141,563 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Mendon · near
141,563
Mendon · near
141,563 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #3
San Jose · this city
141,565
San Jose · this city
141,565 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #4
Niwot · near
141,621
Niwot · near
141,621 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #5
Malverne Park… · near
141,629
Malverne Park… · near
141,629 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
Simsbury Cent… · highest
141,688
Simsbury Cent… · highest
141,688 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 San Jose 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: 990,054.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
San Jose - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, San Jose lands in the 93rd percentile for household income and the 14th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
93rd
percentile, household income
98th
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: San Jose, CA
990,054 people live in San Jose, California - a mid-sized U.S. city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. San Jose households earn a median of $141,565 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.9%. San Jose's housing stock carries a median value of $1,187,800, and the median resident age is 38.1 years. About 46.5% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 64.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 1,998 residential building permits were authorized in San Jose (Slowing), down 15% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. San Jose's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 3194.7 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 60.7°F with 13.5 inches of precipitation per year.
California carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, California scores 110.7 (Well Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,053 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in California run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 22.9 minutes, with 64.6% driving alone and 18.5% working from home, per Census ACS commuting 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 San Jose'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 housing and income to work and mobility to schools and households to climate and hazard context to population change to reported crime to within-city variation to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For San Jose, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in San Jose?
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 8.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the journey to work look like in San Jose?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 64.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 22.9 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 can 408 Census tracts reveal inside San Jose?
PlainCities matches 408 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for San Jose?
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 San Francisco (836,321 residents, $141,446 income); San Diego (1,385,061 residents, $104,321 income); Fresno (543,615 residents, $66,804 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Austin, TX (967,862 residents); Jacksonville, FL (961,739 residents); Fort Worth, TX (941,311 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for San Jose?
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 234 public schools within the city match. 46.5% 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.
Poverty estimate
4.9%
Bachelor's degree+
46.5%
Matched public schools
234
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
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 60.7°F, with 13.5 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
88.7
Annual precipitation
13.5 in
Mean temperature
60.7°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is San Jose growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -19,759 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1,998 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
1,009,573
2025 estimate
989,814
Period change
-2.0%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in San Jose?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3194.7 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.
Total reported rate
3194.7
Violent rate
606.8
Property rate
2587.9
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Top-decile income · poverty 4.9% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
C-
City profile score · San Jose, CA
52/100
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+
$141,565
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A-
46.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B-
4.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
607 /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.
San Jose profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 94/100 (A+) · $141,565
Bachelor's+ share: 81/100 (A-) · 46.5%
Poverty rate: 66/100 (B-) · 4.9%
Violent crime: 9/100 (F) · 607 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where San Jose sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
San Jose'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 - San Jose highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
San Jose, CA (this city): 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
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Fresno, CA : home $348,500, crime 4,007/100k
Sacramento, CA : home $484,600, crime 3,302/100k
Long Beach, CA : home $762,200, crime 4,155/100k
Oakland, CA : home $924,700, crime 9,156/100k
How does San Jose compare to other US cities?
San Jose measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income93% higher than other cities
Home value98% 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.
Zoom in to just California and the picture shifts: San Jose ranks #380 of 441 California cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares San Jose 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 San Jose near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, San Jose ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares San Jose only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#205 of 1,338
85th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#163 of 1,343
88th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#853 of 1,450
41st percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#315 of 1,458
78th 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
93rd percentile nationally for median household income · 14th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
San Jose's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
San Jose'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 San Jose's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$1,187,8002nd percentilemore affordable than 2% 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
San Jose's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,135 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#111 of 117
Large cities (200,000–999,999)
At 8.4×, San Jose sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,135 of 15,516 and #111 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
$141,565San Jose, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context San Jose, 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 San Jose, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)46.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)64.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
990,054
Median Income
$141,565
Median Home Value
$1,187,800
Median Age
38.1
Poverty Rate
4.9%
Labor force participation
64.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
46.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3194.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
606.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2587.9
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
60.7°F
Annual Precipitation
13.5"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
234
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
San Jose's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
1,009,573 residents
2021
981,769 residents
2022
976,520 residents
2023
980,125 residents
2024
987,831 residents
2025
989,814 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
1,998
housing units authorized
Single-Family
642
detached homes
Multifamily
1,356
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
2,345
514
1,831
$329.5M
2020
1,369
312
1,057
$196.4M
2021
658
299
359
$144.0M
2022
2,003
553
1,450
$205.4M
2023
2,650
581
2,069
$390.5M
2024
1,998
642
1,356
$270.8M
Permit volume decreased 15% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
22.9 minutes
Drive Alone
64.6%
Carpool
10.5%
Public Transit
2.8%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
18.5%
Other
1.8%
Based on 504,439 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 San Jose. 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 San Jose 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 San Jose sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How San Jose 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.