Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetIL-CARY-IL · Cary, IL 17,875 pop · income 83rd 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 Cary
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Cary on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Murray · lowest
40,348
Murray · lowest
40,348 median HH income
32.0% of the leader · rank #1
Blandon · near
109,775
Blandon · near
109,775 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #2
Murrieta · near
109,780
Murrieta · near
109,780 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #3
Cary · this city
109,790
Cary · this city
109,790 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #4
Barbourmeade · near
109,800
Barbourmeade · near
109,800 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #5
Glasgow · near
109,803
Glasgow · near
109,803 median HH income
87.1% of the leader · rank #6
Lemont · highest
126,100
Lemont · highest
126,100 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 Cary 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: 17,875.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Cary - the verdict
Nationally, Cary sits in the 83rd percentile for household income and the 86th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
83rd
percentile, household income
63rd
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
86th
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: Cary, IL
Illinois's Cary is a small town, with 17,875 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $109,790 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.8%. Cary's housing stock carries a median value of $287,000, and the median resident age is 38.6 years. Educational attainment runs 45.5% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 70.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 10 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 47% from five years earlier. Cary reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 487.9 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Illinois tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Illinois scores 100.0 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,063 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Illinois run around $240, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 54.5 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Cary'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 reported crime to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to housing and income to schools and households to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Cary, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count, local building permits.
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.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Cary?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 487.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 79% lower 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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Cary?
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 Illinois, the closest population matches are Godfrey (17,743 residents, $92,746 income); Lemont (17,643 residents, $126,100 income); Bourbonnais (18,109 residents, $81,017 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hybla Valley, VA (17,877 residents); Murray, KY (17,888 residents); Parole, MD (17,910 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Cary?
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. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.8%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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 Cary?
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 6 public schools within the city match. 45.5% 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
2.8%
Bachelor's degree+
45.5%
Matched public schools
6
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +129 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 10 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
2020 estimate
17,803
2025 estimate
17,932
Period change
+0.7%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
B+
City profile score · Cary, IL
75/100
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.
Violent crime A+
11 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income A-
$109,790
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A-
45.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living D
100.0 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Cary profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 94/100 (A+) · 11 /100k
Household income: 81/100 (A-) · $109,790
Poverty rate: 80/100 (A-) · 2.8%
Bachelor's+ share: 80/100 (A-) · 45.5%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Cary sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Cary'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 - Cary highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Cary, IL (this city): home $287,000, crime 488/100k
Murray, KY : home $193,300, crime 1,528/100k
Anacortes, WA : home $647,700, crime 1,589/100k
Conyers, GA : home $218,000, crime 2,851/100k
Ashtabula, OH : home $99,200, crime 1,106/100k
Lemont, IL : home $447,800, crime 577/100k
Bourbonnais, IL : home $242,600, crime 821/100k
Palos Hills, IL : home $259,200, crime 479/100k
Shorewood, IL : home $324,600, crime 911/100k
Franklin Park, IL : home $261,700, crime 1,576/100k
How does Cary compare to other US cities?
Cary measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income83% higher than other cities
Home value63% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety86% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Illinois, Cary ranks #105 of 455 Illinois cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Cary against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Illinois only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Illinois-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Cary near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Cary ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Cary only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#150 of 1,311
89th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#174 of 1,315
87th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#1,045 of 1,335
21st percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#140 of 1,336
89th percentile in Illinois
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 Illinois only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
83rd percentile nationally for median household income · 86th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Cary's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Cary'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 Cary's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$287,00037th percentilemore affordable than 37% 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
Cary's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,588 of 15,516
More affordable than 70% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#460 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.6×, Cary sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,588 of 15,516 and #460 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$109,790Cary, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Cary, IL median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Cary, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)45.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)70.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
17,875
Median Income
$109,790
Median Home Value
$287,000
Median Age
38.6
Poverty Rate
2.8%
Labor force participation
70.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
45.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
487.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
11.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
476.9
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.
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
Cary's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,803 residents
2021
17,869 residents
2022
17,827 residents
2023
17,996 residents
2024
18,005 residents
2025
17,932 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
10
housing units authorized
Single-Family
10
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
19
19
0
$3.3M
2020
16
16
0
$3.4M
2021
51
51
0
$11.2M
2022
77
53
24
$13.0M
2023
11
6
5
$2.3M
2024
10
10
0
$2.5M
Permit volume decreased 47% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
75.8%
Carpool
3.9%
Public Transit
1.9%
Walk
0.4%
Work from Home
17.7%
Based on 9,878 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Illinois statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $240
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Illinois at $240 (electricity about $100 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Illinois statewide averages, not a meter reading for Cary. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Illinois's BEA cost-of-living index is 100.0 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Cary is $1,063/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Illinois statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 54.5 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Illinois statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Cary sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Cary compares to similar-size Illinois 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.