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-MOUNT-VERNON-IL · Mount Vernon, IL 14,492 pop · income 24th pct · 11 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 Mount Vernon
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Mount Vernon on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Sterling · lowest
52,647
Sterling · lowest
52,647 median HH income
27.8% of the leader · rank #1
Center Ridge · near
52,750
Center Ridge · near
52,750 median HH income
27.8% of the leader · rank #2
Bruceville · near
52,750
Bruceville · near
52,750 median HH income
27.8% of the leader · rank #3
Madison · near
52,750
Madison · near
52,750 median HH income
27.8% of the leader · rank #4
Sudlersville · near
52,750
Sudlersville · near
52,750 median HH income
27.8% of the leader · rank #5
Mount Vernon · this city
52,751
Mount Vernon · this city
52,751 median HH income
27.8% of the leader · rank #6
Bothell East · highest
189,519
Bothell East · highest
189,519 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 Mount Vernon 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: 14,492.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Mount Vernon - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Mount Vernon places in the 24th percentile for household income and the 51st percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
24th
percentile, household income
6th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
51st
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: Mount Vernon, IL
14,492 people live in Mount Vernon, Illinois - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $52,751 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.5%. Mount Vernon's housing stock carries a median value of $89,700, and the median resident age is 39.0 years. About 19.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 56.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 6 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 80% from five years earlier. Mount Vernon reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1336.1 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures 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. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,063 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Illinois's average monthly utility costs around $240 (state average). Workers in Mount Vernon report an average commute of 13.3 minutes, with 79.5% driving alone and 3.3% working from home. 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 Mount Vernon'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 within-city variation to comparison shortlist to schools and households to population change to reported crime to housing and income to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Mount Vernon, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Within-city variation
What can 11 Census tracts reveal inside Mount Vernon?
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.
PlainCities matches 11 Census tracts to this city.
Which cities make useful reference points for Mount Vernon?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Swansea (14,603 residents, $84,367 income); Lindenhurst (14,365 residents, $127,837 income); Sterling (14,670 residents, $52,647 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Bothell East, WA (14,487 residents); Verona, WI (14,499 residents); Jasper, AL (14,480 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 Mount Vernon?
The NCES join finds 9 public schools within the city match. 19.0% 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.
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.
Is Mount Vernon growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -379 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 6 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Mount Vernon?
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 1336.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 41% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1088.6
Violent rate
247.4
Total reported rate
1336.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Mount Vernon?
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 15.5%, 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. 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.
Household income
$52,751
Home value
$89,700
Value / income
1.7×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Mount Vernon?
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 79.5%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.3 minutes.
Public transit
0.4%
Work from home
3.3%
Drive alone
79.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 6,336 workers age 16+.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
F
City profile score · Mount Vernon, 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 D
247 /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
19.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$52,751
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Mount Vernon profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 41/100 (D) · 247 /100k
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 31/100 (F) · 19.0%
Household income: 24/100 (F) · $52,751
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.5%
Where Mount Vernon sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Mount Vernon'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 - Mount Vernon highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Mount Vernon, IL (this city): home $89,700, crime 1,336/100k
Verona, WI : home $382,800, crime 712/100k
Jasper, AL : home $208,000, crime 4,751/100k
Brainerd, MN : home $178,600, crime 2,210/100k
Hopatcong, NJ : home $318,600, crime 251/100k
Swansea, IL : home $211,700, crime 785/100k
Lindenhurst, IL : home $275,400, crime 189/100k
Sterling, IL : home $107,800, crime 1,653/100k
Hickory Hills, IL : home $278,400, crime 1,124/100k
Chatham, IL : home $231,900, crime 597/100k
Antioch, IL : home $299,700, crime 570/100k
How does Mount Vernon compare to other US cities?
Mount Vernon measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income24% higher than other cities
Home value6% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety51% 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, Mount Vernon ranks #294 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 Mount Vernon 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 Mount Vernon near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Mount Vernon ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Mount Vernon only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,026 of 1,311
22nd percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#938 of 1,315
29th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#227 of 1,335
83rd percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#627 of 1,336
53rd 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
24th percentile nationally for median household income · 51st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Mount Vernon's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Mount Vernon'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 Mount Vernon's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$89,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 94% 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
Mount Vernon's home-value-to-income ratio: 1.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#746 of 15,516
More affordable than 95% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#18 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 1.7×, Mount Vernon sits in the affordable band:
national rank #746 of 15,516 and #18 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
$52,751Mount Vernon, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Mount Vernon, 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 Mount Vernon, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)19.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)56.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,492
Median Income
$52,751
Median Home Value
$89,700
Median Age
39.0
Poverty Rate
15.5%
Labor force participation
56.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
19.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1336.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
247.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1088.6
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.
Schools
Total Schools
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Mount Vernon's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,566 residents
2021
14,511 residents
2022
14,302 residents
2023
14,268 residents
2024
14,182 residents
2025
14,187 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
6
housing units authorized
Single-Family
6
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
30
8
22
$2.8M
2020
3
3
0
$0.5M
2021
8
8
0
$1.4M
2022
5
5
0
$1.2M
2023
4
4
0
$0.9M
2024
6
6
0
$3.4M
Permit volume decreased 80% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.3 minutes
Drive Alone
79.5%
Carpool
13.4%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
3.3%
Other
1.9%
Based on 6,336 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 Mount Vernon. 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 Mount Vernon 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 Mount Vernon sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Mount Vernon 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.