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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-SOUTH-LAKE-TAHOE-CA · South Lake Tahoe, CA 21,319 pop · income 55th pct · 1 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 South Lake Tahoe
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest South Lake Tahoe on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Gallup · lowest
57,466
Gallup · lowest
57,466 median HH income
30.2% of the leader · rank #1
Millbury · near
73,934
Millbury · near
73,934 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #2
South Lake Ta… · this city
73,940
South Lake Ta… · this city
73,940 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #3
Jersey Shore · near
73,942
Jersey Shore · near
73,942 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #4
Bennett Sprin… · near
73,950
Bennett Sprin… · near
73,950 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #5
Sinking Spring · near
73,950
Sinking Spring · near
73,950 median HH income
38.9% of the leader · rank #6
Granite Bay · highest
190,000
Granite Bay · highest
190,000 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 South Lake Tahoe 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: 21,319.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
South Lake Tahoe - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, South Lake Tahoe lands in the 55th percentile for household income and the 27th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
55th
percentile, household income
90th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
27th
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: South Lake Tahoe, CA
South Lake Tahoe is a small city in California, home to 21,319 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in South Lake Tahoe report a median income of $73,940 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.1%. Home values in South Lake Tahoe run a median of $630,200, and the median resident age is 39.3 years. Educational attainment runs 34.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 67.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 11 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 58% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2247.1 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 44.2°F with 20.5 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. Monthly utility costs average around $275 across California, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 13.7 minutes, with 61.0% driving alone and 13.2% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 88.7 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of South Lake Tahoe'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 housing and income to comparison shortlist to schools and households to climate and hazard context to reported crime to population change to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For South Lake Tahoe, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in South Lake Tahoe?
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 61.0%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.7 minutes.
How far does income reach against housing in South Lake Tahoe?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 8.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.1%, 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for South Lake Tahoe?
Within California, the closest population matches are Stevenson Ranch (21,317 residents, $146,404 income); Granite Bay (21,378 residents, $190,000 income); Valinda (21,626 residents, $99,979 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Candler-McAfee, GA (21,316 residents); Mesquite, NV (21,314 residents); Mukilteo, WA (21,312 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 1 Census tracts reveal inside South Lake Tahoe?
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.
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 South Lake Tahoe?
The NCES join finds 9 public schools within the city match. 34.0% 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.
Matched public schools
9
Bachelor's degree+
34.0%
Poverty estimate
7.1%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What physical conditions frame life in South Lake Tahoe?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 44.2°F, with 20.5 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.
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.
Mean temperature
44.2°F
Annual precipitation
20.5 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
88.7
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in South Lake Tahoe?
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 2247.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 1% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1461.6
Violent rate
785.5
Total reported rate
2247.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is South Lake Tahoe 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 declined by -196 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 11 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
-0.9%
2025 estimate
21,115
2020 estimate
21,311
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 7.1% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · South Lake Tahoe, CA
35/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share B-
34.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income C-
$73,940
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C-
7.1%
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.
Violent crime F
786 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
South Lake Tahoe profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 65/100 (B-) · 34.0%
Household income: 53/100 (C-) · $73,940
Poverty rate: 52/100 (C-) · 7.1%
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Violent crime: 2/100 (F) · 786 /100k
Where South Lake Tahoe sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
South Lake Tahoe'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 - South Lake Tahoe highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
South Lake Tahoe, CA (this city): home $630,200, crime 2,247/100k
Mesquite, NV : home $374,400, crime 1,129/100k
Mukilteo, WA : home $830,000, crime 1,823/100k
Gallup, NM : home $134,600, crime 5,400/100k
Carlisle, PA : home $212,400, crime 1,314/100k
Geneva, IL : home $415,800, crime 584/100k
Port Hueneme, CA : home $556,200, crime 2,280/100k
Imperial, CA : home $344,700, crime 259/100k
How does South Lake Tahoe compare to other US cities?
South Lake Tahoe measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income55% higher than other cities
Home value90% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety27% 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: South Lake Tahoe ranks #284 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 South Lake Tahoe 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 South Lake Tahoe near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, South Lake Tahoe ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares South Lake Tahoe only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#866 of 1,338
35th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#539 of 1,343
60th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#674 of 1,450
53rd percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#545 of 1,458
62nd 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
55th percentile nationally for median household income · 27th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
South Lake Tahoe's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
South Lake Tahoe'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 South Lake Tahoe's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$630,20010th percentilemore affordable than 10% 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
South Lake Tahoe's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,168 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,230 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 8.5×, South Lake Tahoe sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,168 of 15,516 and #3,230 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$73,940South Lake Tahoe, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context South Lake Tahoe, 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 South Lake Tahoe, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)34.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
21,319
Median Income
$73,940
Median Home Value
$630,200
Median Age
39.3
Poverty Rate
7.1%
Labor force participation
67.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
34.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2247.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
785.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1461.6
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
44.2°F
Annual Precipitation
20.5"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
South Lake Tahoe's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
21,311 residents
2021
21,423 residents
2022
21,218 residents
2023
21,127 residents
2024
21,157 residents
2025
21,115 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
11
housing units authorized
Single-Family
9
detached homes
Multifamily
2
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
26
8
18
$18.1M
2020
21
19
2
$8.9M
2021
18
18
0
$9.2M
2022
102
34
68
$45.6M
2023
78
14
64
$30.7M
2024
11
9
2
$4.6M
Permit volume decreased 58% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.7 minutes
Drive Alone
61.0%
Carpool
11.8%
Public Transit
2.2%
Walk
7.2%
Work from Home
13.2%
Other
4.6%
Based on 11,618 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 South Lake Tahoe. 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 South Lake Tahoe 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 South Lake Tahoe sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How South Lake Tahoe 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.