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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SANTA-MARIA-CA · Santa Maria, CA 109,880 pop · income 66th pct · 70 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 Santa Maria
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Santa Maria on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Ponce zona ur… · lowest
18,650
Ponce zona ur… · lowest
18,650 median HH income
13.6% of the leader · rank #1
Santa Maria · this city
84,617
Santa Maria · this city
84,617 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #2
Carney · near
84,619
Carney · near
84,619 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #3
Cohassett Bea… · near
84,621
Cohassett Bea… · near
84,621 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #4
Paris · near
84,632
Paris · near
84,632 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #5
Oak Park Heig… · near
84,639
Oak Park Heig… · near
84,639 median HH income
61.6% of the leader · rank #6
Sugar Land · highest
137,511
Sugar Land · highest
137,511 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 Santa Maria 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: 109,880.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Santa Maria - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Santa Maria lands in the 66th percentile for household income and the 22nd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
66th
percentile, household income
84th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
22nd
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: Santa Maria, CA
Santa Maria is a mid-sized U.S. city in California, home to 109,880 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Santa Maria brings in $84,617 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 11.2%. Typical homes in Santa Maria are valued around $478,200, and the median resident age is 29.3 years. 15.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 188 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 62% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2543.3 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: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, California scores 110.7 (Well Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,053 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 21.0 minutes, with 71.8% driving alone and 5.3% working from home, per Census ACS commuting 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 Santa Maria'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 population change to housing and income to schools and households to work and mobility to reported crime to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Santa Maria, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can 70 Census tracts reveal inside Santa Maria?
PlainCities matches 70 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.
Is Santa Maria growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,601 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 188 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
How far does income reach against housing in Santa Maria?
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 5.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 11.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Santa Maria?
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 Buenaventura (Ventura) (109,900 residents, $100,407 income); Temecula (110,404 residents, $117,840 income); Costa Mesa (110,538 residents, $110,073 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Ponce zona urbana, PR (109,765 residents); Sugar Land, TX (109,735 residents); Greeley, CO (109,421 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 Santa Maria?
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 36 public schools within the city match. 15.1% 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
11.2%
Bachelor's degree+
15.1%
Matched public schools
36
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Santa Maria?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 71.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 21.0 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. 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
71.8%
Work from home
5.3%
Public transit
1.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 47,612 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Santa Maria?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2543.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 12% 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
2543.3
Violent rate
660.6
Property rate
1882.7
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Above median income · poverty 11.2% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Santa Maria, CA
29/100
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+
$84,617
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
11.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
15.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
661 /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.
Santa Maria profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 64/100 (C+) · $84,617
Poverty rate: 35/100 (F) · 11.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 20/100 (F) · 15.1%
Violent crime: 7/100 (F) · 661 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Santa Maria sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Santa Maria'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 - Santa Maria highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Santa Maria, CA (this city): home $478,200, crime 2,543/100k
Sugar Land, TX : home $406,600, crime 1,462/100k
Greeley, CO : home $369,600, crime 3,690/100k
South Fulton, GA : home $270,600, crime 2,378/100k
Sparks, NV : home $455,900, crime 2,978/100k
Everett, WA : home $532,300, crime 3,484/100k
Temecula, CA : home $640,400, crime 1,831/100k
Costa Mesa, CA : home $1,054,700, crime 3,574/100k
Murrieta, CA : home $606,900, crime 1,127/100k
West Covina, CA : home $712,300, crime 2,338/100k
How does Santa Maria compare to other US cities?
Santa Maria measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income66% higher than other cities
Home value84% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety22% 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, Santa Maria ranks #316 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 Santa Maria 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 Santa Maria near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Santa Maria ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Santa Maria only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#706 of 1,338
47th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#729 of 1,343
46th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#433 of 1,450
70th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#1,045 of 1,458
28th 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
66th percentile nationally for median household income · 22nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Santa Maria's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Santa Maria'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 Santa Maria's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$478,20016th percentilemore affordable than 16% 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
Santa Maria's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,767 of 15,516
More affordable than 11% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#539 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 5.7×, Santa Maria sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,767 of 15,516 and #539 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
$84,617Santa Maria, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Santa Maria, 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 Santa Maria, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)15.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)11.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
109,880
Median Income
$84,617
Median Home Value
$478,200
Median Age
29.3
Poverty Rate
11.2%
Labor force participation
61.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
15.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2543.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
660.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1882.7
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
36
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Santa Maria's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
109,789 residents
2021
110,115 residents
2022
110,328 residents
2023
110,453 residents
2024
110,986 residents
2025
111,390 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
188
housing units authorized
Single-Family
178
detached homes
Multifamily
10
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
489
110
379
$50.9M
2020
461
120
341
$47.0M
2021
592
132
460
$61.9M
2022
831
129
702
$93.9M
2023
166
158
8
$19.8M
2024
188
178
10
$41.6M
Permit volume decreased 62% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
21.0 minutes
Drive Alone
71.8%
Carpool
18.9%
Public Transit
1.6%
Walk
1.2%
Work from Home
5.3%
Other
1.2%
Based on 47,612 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 Santa Maria. 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 Santa Maria 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 Santa Maria sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Santa Maria 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.