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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SHAFTER-CA · Shafter, CA 20,618 pop · income 47th 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 Shafter
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Shafter on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Pittsburg · lowest
40,220
Pittsburg · lowest
40,220 median HH income
18.2% of the leader · rank #1
New Auburn · near
67,981
New Auburn · near
67,981 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #2
Sterlington · near
67,986
Sterlington · near
67,986 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #3
Shafter · this city
67,989
Shafter · this city
67,989 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #4
Nebraska City · near
67,993
Nebraska City · near
67,993 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #5
Pike · near
68,000
Pike · near
68,000 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #6
La Cañada Fli… · highest
221,451
La Cañada Fli… · highest
221,451 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 Shafter 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: 20,618.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Shafter - the verdict
Shafter ranks in the 47th percentile for household income and the 41st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
47th
percentile, household income
66th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
41st
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: Shafter, CA
Shafter is a small city in California, home to 20,618 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Shafter brings in $67,989 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 18.1%. Typical homes in Shafter are valued around $306,800, and the median resident age is 28.0 years. Educational attainment runs 10.7% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 58.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 433 residential building permits were authorized in Shafter (Building Boom), up 128% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Shafter reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1643.8 crimes per 100,000 residents, below 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 62.9°F with 7.7 inches of precipitation per year.
California carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 110.7 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. 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 Shafter workers runs 21.6 minutes, with 84.3% driving alone and 3.3% working from home. 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 Shafter'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 climate and hazard context to housing and income to comparison shortlist to population change to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Shafter, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, matched public-school count, 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. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Shafter?
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 84.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 21.6 minutes.
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 10.7% 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.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 62.9°F, with 7.7 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.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Shafter?
Within California, the closest population matches are Lomita (20,409 residents, $92,920 income); Rosamond (20,835 residents, $77,773 income); Imperial (20,943 residents, $83,214 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Parma Heights, OH (20,616 residents); Groveland, FL (20,621 residents); Elko, NV (20,624 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.
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 Shafter?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 18.1%, 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
$67,989
Home value
$306,800
Value / income
4.5×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +3,810 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +19.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 433 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
+19.0%
2025 estimate
23,871
2020 estimate
20,061
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Shafter?
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 1643.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 28% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1364.6
Violent rate
279.1
Total reported rate
1643.8
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 18.1% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Shafter, CA
25/100
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 D
$67,989
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
279 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate F
18.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
10.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
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.
Shafter profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 46/100 (D) · $67,989
Violent crime: 36/100 (F) · 279 /100k
Poverty rate: 17/100 (F) · 18.1%
Bachelor's+ share: 8/100 (F) · 10.7%
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Shafter sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Shafter'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 - Shafter highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Shafter, CA (this city): home $306,800, crime 1,644/100k
Parma Heights, OH : home $165,800, crime 361/100k
Elko, NV : home $285,400, crime 1,836/100k
Pittsburg, KS : home $110,800, crime 3,860/100k
Bethany, OK : home $161,500, crime 1,741/100k
Pleasantville, NJ : home $177,700, crime 1,877/100k
Lomita, CA : home $792,100, crime 2,141/100k
Imperial, CA : home $344,700, crime 259/100k
How does Shafter compare to other US cities?
Here's how Shafter stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income47% higher than other cities
Home value66% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety41% 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, Shafter ranks #173 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 Shafter 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 Shafter near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Shafter ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Shafter only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#949 of 1,338
29th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,051 of 1,343
22nd percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#224 of 1,450
84th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#1,192 of 1,458
18th 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
47th percentile nationally for median household income · 41st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Shafter's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Shafter'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 Shafter's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$306,80034th percentilemore affordable than 34% 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
Shafter's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#12,001 of 15,516
More affordable than 23% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,350 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.5×, Shafter sits in the moderate band:
national rank #12,001 of 15,516 and #2,350 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$67,989Shafter, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Shafter, 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 Shafter, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)10.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)18.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
20,618
Median Income
$67,989
Median Home Value
$306,800
Median Age
28.0
Poverty Rate
18.1%
Labor force participation
58.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
10.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1643.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
279.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1364.6
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
62.9°F
Annual Precipitation
7.7"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Shafter's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
20,061 residents
2021
20,227 residents
2022
21,016 residents
2023
21,935 residents
2024
22,880 residents
2025
23,871 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
433
housing units authorized
Single-Family
433
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
21
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
190
190
0
$33.1M
2020
270
270
0
$48.7M
2021
363
363
0
$76.1M
2022
211
211
0
$49.1M
2023
178
178
0
$42.8M
2024
433
433
0
$105.5M
Permit volume increased 128% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
21.6 minutes
Drive Alone
84.3%
Carpool
11.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.3%
Work from Home
3.3%
Other
0.6%
Based on 8,073 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 Shafter. 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 Shafter 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 Shafter sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Shafter 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.