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Place dossier plate
SheetIL-ROCKFORD-IL · Rockford, IL 147,649 pop · income 25th pct · 80 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 Rockford
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Rockford on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Syracuse · lowest
45,845
Syracuse · lowest
45,845 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #1
Sodus · near
53,324
Sodus · near
53,324 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #2
Coal Grove · near
53,324
Coal Grove · near
53,324 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #3
Hoosick Falls · near
53,325
Hoosick Falls · near
53,325 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #4
Rockford · this city
53,328
Rockford · this city
53,328 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #5
Raceland · near
53,328
Raceland · near
53,328 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #6
Naperville · highest
150,937
Naperville · highest
150,937 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 Rockford 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: 147,649.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Rockford - the verdict
Rockford ranks in the 25th percentile for household income and the 10th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
25th
percentile, household income
18th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
10th
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: Rockford, IL
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 147,649 residents in Rockford, a mid-sized U.S. city within Illinois. Median household income here is $53,328 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 16.7%. Home values in Rockford run a median of $120,900, and the median resident age is 37.5 years. 23.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 54.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 135 residential building permits were authorized in Rockford (Building Boom), up 53% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Rockford's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3597.2 in FBI UCR data, above 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: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Illinois at 100.0 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). 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. 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 Rockford'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 work and mobility to population change to schools and households to within-city variation to reported crime to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Rockford, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Rockford?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 16.7%, 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Rockford?
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 77.2%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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 80 Census tracts to this city.
Which cities make useful reference points for Rockford?
Within Illinois, the closest population matches are Naperville (149,424 residents, $150,937 income); Joliet (149,785 residents, $88,026 income); Aurora (179,867 residents, $90,109 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Savannah, GA (147,546 residents); Bridgeport, CT (148,012 residents); Denton, TX (146,987 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.
Population change
Is Rockford growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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 declined by -1,405 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 135 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
-0.9%
2025 estimate
147,384
2020 estimate
148,789
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
The NCES join finds 44 public schools within the city match. 23.2% 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
44
Bachelor's degree+
23.2%
Poverty estimate
16.7%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Rockford?
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 3597.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 58% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
2517.2
Violent rate
1080.0
Total reported rate
3597.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
F
City profile score · Rockford, IL
25/100
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 D
23.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; 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.
Household income F
$53,328
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
16.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
1,080 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Rockford profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 44/100 (D) · 23.2%
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Household income: 25/100 (F) · $53,328
Poverty rate: 19/100 (F) · 16.7%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,080 /100k
Where Rockford sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Rockford'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 - Rockford highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Rockford, IL (this city): home $120,900, crime 3,597/100k
Savannah, GA : home $225,200, crime 20/100k
Bridgeport, CT : home $252,400, crime 1,862/100k
Denton, TX : home $325,700, crime 1,949/100k
Pomona, CA : home $569,600, crime 3,469/100k
Mesquite, TX : home $226,500, crime 3,478/100k
Syracuse, NY : home $125,100, crime 5,000/100k
Naperville, IL : home $509,900, crime 967/100k
Joliet, IL : home $248,600, crime 1,595/100k
Aurora, IL : home $260,400, crime 1,518/100k
Elgin, IL : home $252,400, crime 1,369/100k
Springfield, IL : home $155,200, crime 5,813/100k
Peoria, IL : home $149,500, crime 5,629/100k
How does Rockford compare to other US cities?
Where Rockford sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income25% higher than other cities
Home value18% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety10% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Illinois and the picture shifts: Rockford ranks #436 of 455 Illinois cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Rockford 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 Rockford near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Rockford ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Rockford only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,015 of 1,311
23rd percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#643 of 1,315
51st percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#191 of 1,335
85th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#462 of 1,336
65th 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
25th percentile nationally for median household income · 10th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Rockford's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Rockford'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 Rockford's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$120,900Among the most affordablemore affordable than 82% 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
Rockford's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#2,799 of 15,516
More affordable than 82% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#13 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.3×, Rockford sits in the affordable band:
national rank #2,799 of 15,516 and #13 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
$53,328Rockford, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Rockford, 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 Rockford, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)23.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)16.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)54.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
147,649
Median Income
$53,328
Median Home Value
$120,900
Median Age
37.5
Poverty Rate
16.7%
Labor force participation
54.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
23.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3597.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1080.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2517.2
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
44
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Rockford's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
148,789 residents
2021
147,911 residents
2022
146,816 residents
2023
146,578 residents
2024
147,098 residents
2025
147,384 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
135
housing units authorized
Single-Family
99
detached homes
Multifamily
36
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
88
33
55
$11.7M
2020
49
12
37
$7.4M
2021
30
14
16
$6.7M
2022
23
17
6
$4.4M
2023
49
28
21
$10.4M
2024
135
99
36
$30.6M
Permit volume increased 53% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
77.2%
Carpool
11.0%
Public Transit
1.0%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
7.9%
Other
1.6%
Based on 61,582 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 Rockford. 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 Rockford 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 Rockford sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Rockford 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.