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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-PALATINE-IL · Palatine, IL 66,548 pop · income 75th 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 Palatine
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Palatine on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Decatur · lowest
50,809
Decatur · lowest
50,809 median HH income
22.4% of the leader · rank #1
Simms · near
95,938
Simms · near
95,938 median HH income
42.2% of the leader · rank #2
Davey · near
95,938
Davey · near
95,938 median HH income
42.2% of the leader · rank #3
Palatine · this city
95,950
Palatine · this city
95,950 median HH income
42.2% of the leader · rank #4
McQueeney · near
95,950
McQueeney · near
95,950 median HH income
42.2% of the leader · rank #5
Jackson · near
95,960
Jackson · near
95,960 median HH income
42.2% of the leader · rank #6
Sammamish · highest
227,273
Sammamish · highest
227,273 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 Palatine 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: 66,548.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Palatine - the verdict
Palatine ranks in the 75th percentile for household income and the 63rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
75th
percentile, household income
72nd
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
63rd
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: Palatine, IL
66,548 people live in Palatine, Illinois - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Palatine report a median income of $95,950 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 7.6%. Typical homes in Palatine are valued around $347,900, and the median resident age is 39.6 years. Educational attainment runs 49.8% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 69.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 5 residential building permits were authorized in Palatine (Construction Slowdown), down 92% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Palatine reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1008.4 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as 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. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,063 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Illinois run around $240, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 23.0 minutes, with 70.7% driving alone and 18.0% working from home, per Census ACS commuting 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 Palatine'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 work and mobility to reported crime to population change to comparison shortlist to housing and income to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Palatine, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history.
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.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Palatine?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 23.0 minutes.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Palatine?
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 1008.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 56% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Is Palatine 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 -1,821 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 5 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Palatine?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Skokie (66,427 residents, $93,550 income); Decatur (70,368 residents, $50,809 income); Des Plaines (59,408 residents, $94,303 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Idaho Falls, ID (66,672 residents); Union City, NJ (66,375 residents); Sammamish, WA (66,375 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.
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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Palatine?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.6%, 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.
Household income
$95,950
Home value
$347,900
Value / income
3.6×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
The NCES join finds 14 public schools within the city match. 49.8% 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.
Matched public schools
14
Bachelor's degree+
49.8%
Poverty estimate
7.6%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
B-
City profile score · Palatine, IL
65/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share A-
49.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime B+
67 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income B+
$95,950
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate D
7.6%
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.
Palatine profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 84/100 (A-) · 49.8%
Violent crime: 79/100 (B+) · 67 /100k
Household income: 75/100 (B+) · $95,950
Poverty rate: 49/100 (D) · 7.6%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Where Palatine sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Palatine'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 - Palatine highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Palatine, IL (this city): home $347,900, crime 1,008/100k
Idaho Falls, ID : home $298,600, crime 1,566/100k
Sammamish, WA : home $1,240,300, crime 567/100k
Queen Creek, AZ : home $576,600, crime 941/100k
Alpharetta, GA : home $605,700, crime 1,401/100k
Davis, CA : home $829,000, crime 2,398/100k
Skokie, IL : home $368,600, crime 2,890/100k
Decatur, IL : home $97,300, crime 3,470/100k
Des Plaines, IL : home $318,200, crime 1,260/100k
Bolingbrook, IL : home $295,500, crime 961/100k
Orland Park, IL : home $349,400, crime 1,126/100k
Oak Lawn, IL : home $267,900, crime 1,907/100k
How does Palatine compare to other US cities?
Here's how Palatine stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income75% higher than other cities
Home value72% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety63% 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, Palatine ranks #248 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 Palatine 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 Palatine near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Palatine ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Palatine only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#252 of 1,311
81st percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#102 of 1,315
92nd percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#636 of 1,335
52nd percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#112 of 1,336
92nd 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
75th percentile nationally for median household income · 63rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Palatine's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Palatine'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 Palatine's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$347,90028th percentilemore affordable than 28% 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
Palatine's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,453 of 15,516
More affordable than 39% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#244 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.6×, Palatine sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,453 of 15,516 and #244 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$95,950Palatine, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Palatine, 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 Palatine, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)49.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)69.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
66,548
Median Income
$95,950
Median Home Value
$347,900
Median Age
39.6
Poverty Rate
7.6%
Labor force participation
69.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
49.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1008.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
67.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
941.2
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
14
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Palatine's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
67,663 residents
2021
66,439 residents
2022
65,504 residents
2023
65,378 residents
2024
65,942 residents
2025
65,842 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
5
housing units authorized
Single-Family
5
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
62
6
56
$11.0M
2020
7
7
0
$3.2M
2021
6
6
0
$2.3M
2022
11
11
0
$7.3M
2023
64
6
58
$24.8M
2024
5
5
0
$4.0M
Permit volume decreased 92% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
23.0 minutes
Drive Alone
70.7%
Carpool
5.9%
Public Transit
2.3%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
18.0%
Other
1.6%
Based on 36,310 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 Palatine. 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 Palatine 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 Palatine sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Palatine 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.