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-WAUKEGAN-IL · Waukegan, IL 88,919 pop · income 50th pct · 160 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 Waukegan
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Waukegan on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Greenville · lowest
50,564
Greenville · lowest
50,564 median HH income
27.3% of the leader · rank #1
Brentwood · near
70,573
Brentwood · near
70,573 median HH income
38.1% of the leader · rank #2
Pixley · near
70,574
Pixley · near
70,574 median HH income
38.2% of the leader · rank #3
Waukegan · this city
70,578
Waukegan · this city
70,578 median HH income
38.2% of the leader · rank #4
Stockbridge · near
70,579
Stockbridge · near
70,579 median HH income
38.2% of the leader · rank #5
Hawkins · near
70,580
Hawkins · near
70,580 median HH income
38.2% of the leader · rank #6
Newton · highest
184,989
Newton · highest
184,989 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 Waukegan 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: 88,919.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Waukegan - the verdict
Waukegan ranks in the 50th percentile for household income and the 31st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
50th
percentile, household income
36th
percentile, home value
18th
percentile, median rent
31st
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: Waukegan, IL
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 88,919 residents in Waukegan, a small city within Illinois. Waukegan households earn a median of $70,578 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 10.9%. Typical homes in Waukegan are valued around $177,600, and the median resident age is 34.6 years. Educational attainment runs 21.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 63.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 2 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 71% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 2059.5 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, near the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Waukegan's yearly average temperature at 48.4°F.
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). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,063 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Illinois's average monthly utility costs around $240 (state average). The average commute for Waukegan workers runs 24.6 minutes, with 69.9% driving alone and 6.7% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 54.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Waukegan'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 schools and households to climate and hazard context to housing and income to population change to reported crime to comparison shortlist to within-city variation to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Waukegan, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Waukegan?
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 23 public schools within the city match. 21.0% 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 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 48.4°F. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Waukegan?
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 Champaign (88,822 residents, $57,544 income); Cicero (83,223 residents, $68,548 income); Bloomington (78,703 residents, $75,449 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Bloomington, MN (88,838 residents); Clifton, NJ (89,247 residents); Greenville, NC (88,540 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.
What can 160 Census tracts reveal inside Waukegan?
PlainCities matches 160 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.
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 Waukegan?
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 home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 10.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.5×
Home value
$177,600
Household income
$70,578
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Waukegan growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -1,188 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 2 housing units authorized in 2024. 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
89,128
2025 estimate
87,940
Period change
-1.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Waukegan?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2059.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 10% 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
2059.5
Violent rate
445.2
Property rate
1614.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Waukegan?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 69.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 24.6 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. 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.
Drive alone
69.9%
Work from home
6.7%
Public transit
2.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 43,707 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 10.9% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.0 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Illinois average
F
City profile score · Waukegan, IL
37/100
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.
Household income C-
$70,578
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
21.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
10.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
445 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Waukegan profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 50/100 (C-) · $70,578
Cost of living: 40/100 (D) · 100.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 37/100 (F) · 21.0%
Poverty rate: 36/100 (F) · 10.9%
Violent crime: 19/100 (F) · 445 /100k
Where Waukegan sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Waukegan'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 - Waukegan highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Waukegan, IL (this city): home $177,600, crime 2,060/100k
Bloomington, MN : home $346,200, crime 3,776/100k
Clifton, NJ : home $444,300, crime 2,431/100k
Greenville, NC : home $213,100, crime 3,367/100k
San Leandro, CA : home $813,600, crime 4,472/100k
Newton, MA : home $1,202,500, crime 648/100k
Fort Smith, AR : home $168,100, crime 4,527/100k
Champaign, IL : home $199,700, crime 2,781/100k
Cicero, IL : home $236,000, crime 1,581/100k
Schaumburg, IL : home $312,200, crime 2,489/100k
Evanston, IL : home $472,300, crime 2,884/100k
Arlington Heights, IL : home $403,200, crime 930/100k
How does Waukegan compare to other US cities?
Where Waukegan sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income50% higher than other cities
Home value36% pricier than other cities
Median rent18% pricier than other cities
Safety31% 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: Waukegan ranks #368 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 Waukegan 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 Waukegan near the bottom of Illinois's cities
Among the 1,336 Illinois cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Waukegan ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Waukegan only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#582 of 1,311
56th percentile in Illinois
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,336
0th percentile in Illinois
Median Home Value
#414 of 1,315
69th percentile in Illinois
Poverty Rate
#413 of 1,335
69th percentile in Illinois
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#539 of 1,336
59th 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
50th percentile nationally for median household income · 31st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Waukegan's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Waukegan'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 Waukegan's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$177,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 64% 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
Waukegan's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,093 of 15,516
More affordable than 74% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#39 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.5×, Waukegan sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,093 of 15,516 and #39 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
$70,578Waukegan, IL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Waukegan, 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 Waukegan, IL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)10.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
88,919
Median Income
$70,578
Median Home Value
$177,600
Median Age
34.6
Poverty Rate
10.9%
Labor force participation
63.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2059.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
445.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1614.4
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
48.4°F
Annual Precipitation
N/A
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
23
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Waukegan's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
89,128 residents
2021
88,789 residents
2022
88,307 residents
2023
88,198 residents
2024
88,190 residents
2025
87,940 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
2
housing units authorized
Single-Family
2
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
7
7
0
$1.0M
2020
2
2
0
$0.3M
2021
3
3
0
$0.4M
2022
26
2
24
$5.6M
2023
3
3
0
$0.4M
2024
2
2
0
$0.5M
Permit volume decreased 71% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
24.6 minutes
Drive Alone
69.9%
Carpool
17.2%
Public Transit
2.5%
Walk
0.8%
Work from Home
6.7%
Other
2.9%
Based on 43,707 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 Waukegan. 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 Waukegan 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 Waukegan sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Waukegan 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 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.