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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-ELWOOD-IL · Elwood, IL 2,141 pop · income 54th 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 Elwood
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Elwood on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Lordsburg · lowest
33,899
Lordsburg · lowest
33,899 median HH income
21.1% of the leader · rank #1
North River S… · near
73,635
North River S… · near
73,635 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #2
Whitesboro · near
73,638
Whitesboro · near
73,638 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #3
Elwood · this city
73,640
Elwood · this city
73,640 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #4
Paradise Park · near
73,640
Paradise Park · near
73,640 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #5
Kentwood · near
73,647
Kentwood · near
73,647 median HH income
45.9% of the leader · rank #6
Prestbury · highest
160,370
Prestbury · highest
160,370 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 Elwood 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: 2,141.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Elwood - the verdict
Nationally, Elwood sits in the 54th percentile for household income and the 68th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
54th
percentile, household income
50th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
68th
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: Elwood, IL
Illinois's Elwood is a small town, with 2,141 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Elwood brings in $73,640 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 4.1%. Home values in Elwood run a median of $224,900, and the median resident age is 41.8 years. 14.7% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 62.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 0 residential units were authorized in 2024 (No Permits), down 100% from five years earlier. Elwood reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 912.8 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: 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. Monthly utility costs average around $240 across Illinois, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. 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 Elwood'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 housing and income to schools and households to comparison shortlist to population change to work and mobility to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Elwood, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, matched public-school count, 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.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Elwood?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.1%, 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. 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 NCES join finds 1 public school within the city match. 14.7% 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 matched institution count is small, so district boundaries and schools outside the city line may matter more than the municipal count suggests. Use the number as a coverage cue, then verify attendance zones with the district before making a household decision.
Which cities make useful reference points for Elwood?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Merrionette Park (2,144 residents, $53,623 income); Athens (2,146 residents, $85,000 income); Bellevue (2,158 residents, $60,769 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Petersburg, IN (2,141 residents); Calwa, CA (2,140 residents); Pleak, TX (2,142 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.
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 +13 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 0 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Elwood?
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 81.0%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.9%
Work from home
7.9%
Drive alone
81.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,121 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Elwood?
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 912.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 60% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
775.9
Violent rate
136.9
Total reported rate
912.8
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Above median income · poverty 4.1% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
C-
City profile score · Elwood, IL
51/100
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.
Poverty rate B
4.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime C+
137 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income C-
$73,640
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); 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.
Bachelor's+ share F
14.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Elwood profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 71/100 (B) · 4.1%
Violent crime: 62/100 (C+) · 137 /100k
Household income: 53/100 (C-) · $73,640
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 19/100 (F) · 14.7%
Where Elwood sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Elwood'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 - Elwood highlighted among 25 peers.Read the chart values
Elwood, IL (this city): home $224,900, crime 913/100k
Lordsburg, NM : home $86,100, crime 1,155/100k
Athens, IL : home $164,200, crime 689/100k
Catlin, IL : home $119,600, crime 210/100k
Vienna, IL : home $77,400, crime 1,639/100k
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 Elwood compare to other US cities?
Elwood measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income54% higher than other cities
Home value50% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety68% 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, Elwood ranks #221 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 Elwood 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 Elwood near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Elwood ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Elwood only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#518 of 1,311
60th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#282 of 1,315
79th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#919 of 1,335
31st percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#839 of 1,336
37th 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
54th percentile nationally for median household income · 68th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Elwood's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Elwood'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 Elwood's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$224,900Among the most affordablemore affordable than 50% 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
Elwood's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#6,969 of 15,516
More affordable than 55% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#5,849 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.1×, Elwood sits in the moderate band:
national rank #6,969 of 15,516 and #5,849 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$73,640Elwood, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Elwood, 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 Elwood, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)14.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
2,141
Median Income
$73,640
Median Home Value
$224,900
Median Age
41.8
Poverty Rate
4.1%
Labor force participation
62.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
14.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
912.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
136.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
775.9
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
1
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Elwood's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
2,224 residents
2021
2,222 residents
2022
2,205 residents
2023
2,211 residents
2024
2,245 residents
2025
2,237 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
Total Permits (2024)
0
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1
1
0
$0.2M
2020
2
2
0
$0.5M
2021
1
1
0
$0.4M
2022
3
1
2
$0.7M
2023
13
3
10
$2.8M
2024
0
0
0
-
Permit volume decreased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
81.0%
Carpool
8.9%
Public Transit
0.9%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
7.9%
Other
1.3%
Based on 1,121 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 Elwood. 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 Elwood 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 Elwood sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Elwood 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.