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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-ELGIN-IL · Elgin, IL 114,106 pop · income 69th pct · 104 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 Elgin
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Elgin on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Waterbury · lowest
51,642
Waterbury · lowest
51,642 median HH income
37.1% of the leader · rank #1
Port Aransas · near
88,311
Port Aransas · near
88,311 median HH income
63.4% of the leader · rank #2
South Miami · near
88,313
South Miami · near
88,313 median HH income
63.4% of the leader · rank #3
Elgin · this city
88,316
Elgin · this city
88,316 median HH income
63.4% of the leader · rank #4
Hornsby Bend · near
88,317
Hornsby Bend · near
88,317 median HH income
63.4% of the leader · rank #5
Bella Vista · near
88,318
Bella Vista · near
88,318 median HH income
63.4% of the leader · rank #6
Carlsbad · highest
139,326
Carlsbad · highest
139,326 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 Elgin 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: 114,106.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Elgin - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Elgin lands in the 69th percentile for household income and the 50th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
69th
percentile, household income
56th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
50th
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: Elgin, IL
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 114,106 residents in Elgin, a mid-sized U.S. city within Illinois. Median household income here is $88,316 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.9%. Elgin's housing stock carries a median value of $252,400, and the median resident age is 36.3 years. About 26.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 64.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 398 residential building permits were authorized in Elgin (Building Boom), up 199% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Elgin reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1368.7 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 49.0°F with 39.9 inches of precipitation per year and 32.1 inches of snowfall.
Illinois tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 100.0 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. 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. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 54.5 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Elgin'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 comparison shortlist to housing and income to schools and households to reported crime to climate and hazard context to within-city variation to population change to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Elgin, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Elgin?
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 Springfield (113,714 residents, $65,537 income); Peoria (112,126 residents, $58,716 income); Waukegan (88,919 residents, $70,578 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Odessa, TX (114,080 residents); Provo, UT (114,303 residents); Waterbury, CT (114,356 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 Elgin?
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 2.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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 27 public schools within the city match. 26.0% 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.
PlainCities matches 104 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.
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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Elgin?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1368.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 40% 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.
Total reported rate
1368.7
Violent rate
266.7
Property rate
1102.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 49.0°F, with 39.9 inches of precipitation and 32.1 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Illinois is 54.5 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
54.5
Annual precipitation
39.9 in
Mean temperature
49.0°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +862 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 398 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
114,614
2025 estimate
115,476
Period change
+0.8%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 72.7%. 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. 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
72.7%
Work from home
11.6%
Public transit
1.8%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 56,185 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 8.9% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
D
City profile score · Elgin, IL
49/100
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 B-
$88,316
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share C-
26.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
8.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
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.
Violent crime F
267 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Elgin profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 68/100 (B-) · $88,316
Bachelor's+ share: 51/100 (C-) · 26.0%
Poverty rate: 44/100 (D) · 8.9%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Violent crime: 38/100 (F) · 267 /100k
Where Elgin sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Elgin'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 - Elgin highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Elgin, IL (this city): home $252,400, crime 1,369/100k
Odessa, TX : home $208,000, crime 2,159/100k
Provo, UT : home $437,100, crime 1,477/100k
Waterbury, CT : home $185,400, crime 3,241/100k
Carlsbad, CA : home $1,156,900, crime 1,710/100k
Beaumont, TX : home $158,800, crime 4,440/100k
Springfield, IL : home $155,200, crime 5,813/100k
Peoria, IL : home $149,500, crime 5,629/100k
Waukegan, IL : home $177,600, crime 2,060/100k
Champaign, IL : home $199,700, crime 2,781/100k
Cicero, IL : home $236,000, crime 1,581/100k
Rockford, IL : home $120,900, crime 3,597/100k
How does Elgin compare to other US cities?
Elgin measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income69% higher than other cities
Home value56% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety50% 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 Illinois alone, Elgin ranks #297 of 455 Illinois 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 Elgin 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 Elgin near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Elgin ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Elgin only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#305 of 1,311
77th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#228 of 1,315
83rd percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#539 of 1,335
59th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#381 of 1,336
71st 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
69th percentile nationally for median household income · 50th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Elgin's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Elgin'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 Elgin's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$252,40044th percentilemore affordable than 44% 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
Elgin's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,908 of 15,516
More affordable than 62% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#96 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.9×, Elgin sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,908 of 15,516 and #96 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$88,316Elgin, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Elgin, 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 Elgin, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)26.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)64.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
114,106
Median Income
$88,316
Median Home Value
$252,400
Median Age
36.3
Poverty Rate
8.9%
Labor force participation
64.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
26.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1368.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
266.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1102.1
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
49.0°F
Annual Precipitation
39.9"
Annual Snowfall
32.1"
Schools
Total Schools
27
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Elgin's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
114,614 residents
2021
114,060 residents
2022
113,310 residents
2023
113,988 residents
2024
114,988 residents
2025
115,476 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
398
housing units authorized
Single-Family
218
detached homes
Multifamily
180
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
133
133
0
$28.8M
2020
153
153
0
$33.1M
2021
167
167
0
$36.1M
2022
308
308
0
$70.8M
2023
338
264
74
$77.8M
2024
398
218
180
$105.0M
Permit volume increased 199% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
72.7%
Carpool
10.0%
Public Transit
1.8%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
11.6%
Other
2.9%
Based on 56,185 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 Elgin. 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 Elgin 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 Elgin sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Elgin 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, 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.