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Place dossier plate
SheetCA-YUCCA-VALLEY-CA · Yucca Valley, CA 21,744 pop · income 28th 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 Yucca Valley
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Yucca Valley on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
New Castle · lowest
41,478
New Castle · lowest
41,478 median HH income
27.1% of the leader · rank #1
Holiday City… · near
55,298
Holiday City… · near
55,298 median HH income
36.1% of the leader · rank #2
Weatherly · near
55,298
Weatherly · near
55,298 median HH income
36.1% of the leader · rank #3
Yucca Valley · this city
55,302
Yucca Valley · this city
55,302 median HH income
36.1% of the leader · rank #4
Pueblo · near
55,305
Pueblo · near
55,305 median HH income
36.1% of the leader · rank #5
Massillon · near
55,308
Massillon · near
55,308 median HH income
36.1% of the leader · rank #6
Silver Firs · highest
153,026
Silver Firs · highest
153,026 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 Yucca Valley 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: 21,744.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Yucca Valley - the verdict
Yucca Valley ranks in the 28th percentile for household income and the 44th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
28th
percentile, household income
68th
percentile, home value
88th
percentile, median rent
44th
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: Yucca Valley, CA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 21,744 residents in Yucca Valley, a small city within California. Median household income here is $55,302 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 13.2%. Typical homes in Yucca Valley are valued around $321,300, and the median resident age is 40.2 years. About 20.9% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 52.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 36 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Growing), up 9% from five years earlier. Yucca Valley reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1567.3 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 6.3 inches of precipitation per year and 1.7 inches of snowfall.
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). 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 Yucca Valley workers runs 26.1 minutes, with 78.1% driving alone and 6.1% working from home. 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 Yucca Valley'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 population change to comparison shortlist to schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income to climate and hazard context to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Yucca Valley, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates.
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. Population change
Is Yucca Valley 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 grew by +127 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 36 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Yucca Valley?
Within California, the closest population matches are Lakeside CDP (San Diego County) (21,788 residents, $94,877 income); American Canyon (21,698 residents, $123,935 income); Port Hueneme (21,691 residents, $76,655 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are New Castle, PA (21,727 residents); Holiday, FL (21,768 residents); Harvey, LA (21,710 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 does the education layer cover for Yucca Valley?
The NCES join finds 6 public schools within the city match. 20.9% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Yucca Valley?
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 78.1%. The reported mean trip to work is 26.1 minutes.
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 Yucca Valley?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 5.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.2%, 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
$55,302
Home value
$321,300
Value / income
5.8×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What physical conditions frame life in Yucca Valley?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 62.9°F, with 6.3 inches of precipitation and 1.7 inches of annual snowfall. 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
62.9°F
Annual precipitation
6.3 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 Yucca Valley?
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 1567.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 31% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
961.6
Violent rate
605.6
Total reported rate
1567.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 13.2% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
110.7 (US=100)
Highest-decile cost · BEA RPP 2024, California average
F
City profile score · Yucca Valley, CA
21/100
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 F
20.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$55,302
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
606 /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.
Yucca Valley profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 37/100 (F) · 20.9%
Household income: 28/100 (F) · $55,302
Poverty rate: 27/100 (F) · 13.2%
Violent crime: 10/100 (F) · 606 /100k
Cost of living: 6/100 (F) · 110.7 index
Where Yucca Valley sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Yucca Valley'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 - Yucca Valley highlighted among 24 peers.Read the chart values
Yucca Valley, CA (this city): home $321,300, crime 1,567/100k
New Castle, PA : home $72,000, crime 1,120/100k
American Canyon, CA : home $660,100, crime 1,566/100k
Port Hueneme, CA : home $556,200, crime 2,280/100k
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 Yucca Valley compare to other US cities?
Yucca Valley measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income28% higher than other cities
Home value68% pricier than other cities
Median rent88% pricier than other cities
Safety44% 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, Yucca Valley ranks #160 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 Yucca Valley 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 Yucca Valley near the bottom of California's cities
Among the 1,458 California cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Yucca Valley ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Yucca Valley only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,118 of 1,338
16th percentile in California
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,458
0th percentile in California
Median Home Value
#1,026 of 1,343
24th percentile in California
Poverty Rate
#354 of 1,450
75th percentile in California
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#874 of 1,458
40th 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
28th percentile nationally for median household income · 44th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Yucca Valley's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Yucca Valley'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 Yucca Valley's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$321,30032nd percentilemore affordable than 32% 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
Yucca Valley's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,923 of 15,516
More affordable than 10% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,920 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.8×, Yucca Valley sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,923 of 15,516 and #2,920 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
$55,302Yucca Valley, CA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Yucca Valley, 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 Yucca Valley, CA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)52.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
21,744
Median Income
$55,302
Median Home Value
$321,300
Median Age
40.2
Poverty Rate
13.2%
Labor force participation
52.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1567.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
605.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
961.6
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
6.3"
Annual Snowfall
1.7"
Schools
Total Schools
6
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Yucca Valley's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
21,760 residents
2021
21,777 residents
2022
21,762 residents
2023
21,819 residents
2024
21,917 residents
2025
21,887 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Growing
Total Permits (2024)
36
housing units authorized
Single-Family
36
detached homes
Multifamily
0
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
33
33
0
$4.3M
2020
40
40
0
$6.0M
2021
19
19
0
$2.0M
2022
58
54
4
$10.1M
2023
59
59
0
$21.6M
2024
36
36
0
$8.9M
Permit volume increased 9% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
26.1 minutes
Drive Alone
78.1%
Carpool
10.7%
Public Transit
1.3%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
6.1%
Other
2.0%
Based on 9,182 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 Yucca Valley. 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 Yucca Valley 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 Yucca Valley sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Yucca Valley 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.