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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-HARRISBURG-IL · Harrisburg, IL 8,608 pop · income 17th pct · 9 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 Harrisburg
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Harrisburg on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Covington · lowest
43,512
Covington · lowest
43,512 median HH income
17.4% of the leader · rank #1
Grier · near
48,487
Grier · near
48,487 median HH income
19.4% of the leader · rank #2
Harrisburg · this city
48,488
Harrisburg · this city
48,488 median HH income
19.4% of the leader · rank #3
Homosassa Spr… · near
48,489
Homosassa Spr… · near
48,489 median HH income
19.4% of the leader · rank #4
Fairfield · near
48,492
Fairfield · near
48,492 median HH income
19.4% of the leader · rank #5
Wheeling · near
48,498
Wheeling · near
48,498 median HH income
19.4% of the leader · rank #6
Glencoe · highest
250,001
Glencoe · highest
250,001 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 Harrisburg 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: 8,608.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Harrisburg - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Harrisburg places in the 17th percentile for household income and the 77th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
17th
percentile, household income
5th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
77th
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: Harrisburg, IL
8,608 people live in Harrisburg, Illinois - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Harrisburg report a median income of $48,488 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 22.2%. Harrisburg's housing stock carries a median value of $84,800, and the median resident age is 37.5 years. Educational attainment runs 20.1% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 50.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Harrisburg reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 691.2 in FBI UCR data, below 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 57.3°F with 47.6 inches of precipitation per year.
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. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,063 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $240 across Illinois, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 15.7 minutes, with 89.5% driving alone and 3.7% working from home, per Census ACS commuting 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 Harrisburg'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 climate and hazard context to work and mobility to within-city variation to population change to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Harrisburg, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Harrisburg?
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 57.3°F, with 47.6 inches of precipitation. 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Harrisburg?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 89.5%. The reported mean trip to work is 15.7 minutes.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
What can 9 Census tracts reveal inside Harrisburg?
PlainCities matches 9 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Harrisburg?
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 Glenwood (8,620 residents, $71,376 income); Clarendon Hills (8,642 residents, $125,826 income); Rock Falls (8,683 residents, $48,733 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Templeton, CA (8,608 residents); Covington, TN (8,612 residents); Monona, WI (8,604 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.
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.
Population change
Is Harrisburg growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -329 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -4.0% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
2020 estimate
8,251
2025 estimate
7,922
Period change
-4.0%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the education layer cover for Harrisburg?
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. 20.1% 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
22.2%
Bachelor's degree+
20.1%
Matched public schools
6
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Harrisburg?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 691.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 70% 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
691.2
Violent rate
166.4
Property rate
524.8
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Harrisburg?
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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 1.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 22.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
1.7×
Home value
$84,800
Household income
$48,488
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Low income · poverty 22.2% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
F
City profile score · Harrisburg, IL
31/100
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 C-
166 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger 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.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$48,488
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
22.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Harrisburg profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 54/100 (C-) · 166 /100k
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 35/100 (F) · 20.1%
Household income: 18/100 (F) · $48,488
Poverty rate: 10/100 (F) · 22.2%
Where Harrisburg sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Harrisburg'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 - Harrisburg highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Harrisburg, IL (this city): home $84,800, crime 691/100k
Covington, TN : home $163,900, crime 3,643/100k
Monona, WI : home $390,400, crime 3,172/100k
Highland Heights, OH : home $342,400, crime 444/100k
Glenwood, IL : home $182,900, crime 1,976/100k
Clarendon Hills, IL : home $595,500, crime 434/100k
Rock Falls, IL : home $82,400, crime 3,569/100k
Lake Villa, IL : home $325,900, crime 605/100k
Glencoe, IL : home $1,354,900, crime 625/100k
Mascoutah, IL : home $226,300, crime 390/100k
How does Harrisburg compare to other US cities?
Where Harrisburg sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income17% higher than other cities
Home value5% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety77% 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, Harrisburg ranks #159 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 Harrisburg 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 Harrisburg near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Harrisburg ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Harrisburg only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,128 of 1,311
14th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#1,012 of 1,315
23rd percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#82 of 1,335
94th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#577 of 1,336
57th 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
17th percentile nationally for median household income · 77th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Harrisburg's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Harrisburg'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 Harrisburg's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$84,800Among the most affordablemore affordable than 95% 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
Harrisburg's home-value-to-income ratio: 1.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#875 of 15,516
More affordable than 94% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#848 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 1.7×, Harrisburg sits in the affordable band:
national rank #875 of 15,516 and #848 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$48,488Harrisburg, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Harrisburg, 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 Harrisburg, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)22.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
8,608
Median Income
$48,488
Median Home Value
$84,800
Median Age
37.5
Poverty Rate
22.2%
Labor force participation
50.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
691.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
166.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
524.8
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
57.3°F
Annual Precipitation
47.6"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
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
Harrisburg's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
8,251 residents
2021
8,128 residents
2022
8,052 residents
2023
7,993 residents
2024
7,942 residents
2025
7,922 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
15.7 minutes
Drive Alone
89.5%
Carpool
1.9%
Public Transit
1.9%
Walk
2.2%
Work from Home
3.7%
Other
0.8%
Based on 3,303 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 Harrisburg. 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 Harrisburg 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 Harrisburg sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Harrisburg 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.