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Place dossier plate
SheetIN-FRANKLIN-IN · Franklin, IN 25,999 pop · income 59th 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 Franklin
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Franklin on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
East Chicago · lowest
41,071
East Chicago · lowest
41,071 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #1
Millport · near
77,292
Millport · near
77,292 median HH income
56.0% of the leader · rank #2
Fithian · near
77,292
Fithian · near
77,292 median HH income
56.0% of the leader · rank #3
Luxemburg · near
77,292
Luxemburg · near
77,292 median HH income
56.0% of the leader · rank #4
Franklin · this city
77,305
Franklin · this city
77,305 median HH income
56.0% of the leader · rank #5
Rutherford · near
77,306
Rutherford · near
77,306 median HH income
56.0% of the leader · rank #6
Chanhassen · highest
138,034
Chanhassen · highest
138,034 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 Franklin 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: 25,999.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Franklin - the verdict
Franklin ranks in the 59th percentile for household income and the 57th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
59th
percentile, household income
46th
percentile, home value
27th
percentile, median rent
57th
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: Franklin, IN
Franklin is a small city in Indiana, home to 25,999 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Franklin households earn a median of $77,305 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.5%. Typical homes in Franklin are valued around $212,500, and the median resident age is 34.0 years. Educational attainment runs 24.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 61.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 197 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 112% from five years earlier. Franklin reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1172.9 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Indiana run below the national norm: the state registers 93.3 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,096 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $235 across Indiana, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Franklin report an average commute of 22.0 minutes, with 77.3% driving alone and 10.1% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 45.5 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Franklin'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 comparison shortlist to reported crime to housing and income to schools and households to population change to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Franklin, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, 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. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Franklin?
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 Indiana, the closest population matches are East Chicago (26,158 residents, $41,071 income); Marion (27,384 residents, $43,349 income); Greenfield (24,308 residents, $74,949 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Winona, MN (25,998 residents); Chanhassen, MN (26,001 residents); Mauldin, SC (25,985 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 the FBI record say about safety in Franklin?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1172.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 49% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Franklin?
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 2.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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 8 public schools within the city match. 24.6% 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.
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 Franklin growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,373 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 197 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 upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
2020 estimate
25,370
2025 estimate
26,743
Period change
+5.4%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Franklin?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 77.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 22.0 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
77.3%
Work from home
10.1%
Public transit
0.4%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 12,301 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 8.5% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
93.3 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Indiana average
C+
City profile score · Franklin, IN
60/100
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 B+
84 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living B
93.3 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 C
$77,305
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share D
24.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
8.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Franklin profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 75/100 (B+) · 84 /100k
Cost of living: 72/100 (B) · 93.3 index
Household income: 57/100 (C) · $77,305
Bachelor's+ share: 48/100 (D) · 24.6%
Poverty rate: 46/100 (D) · 8.5%
Where Franklin sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Franklin'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 - Franklin highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Franklin, IN (this city): home $212,500, crime 1,173/100k
Winona, MN : home $193,500, crime 2,484/100k
Mauldin, SC : home $242,100, crime 1,600/100k
Norfolk, NE : home $199,100, crime 1,346/100k
Florence, AZ : home $322,600, crime 668/100k
East Chicago, IN : home $92,400, crime 2,416/100k
Marion, IN : home $83,200, crime 1,212/100k
Highland, IN : home $219,500, crime 1,694/100k
Munster, IN : home $312,000, crime 1,080/100k
Avon, IN : home $300,600, crime 1,742/100k
How does Franklin compare to other US cities?
Franklin measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income59% higher than other cities
Home value46% pricier than other cities
Median rent27% pricier than other cities
Safety57% 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 Indiana, Franklin ranks #60 of 110 Indiana 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 Franklin against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Indiana only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Indiana-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Franklin near the bottom of Indiana's cities
Among the 850 Indiana cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Franklin ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Franklin only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#197 of 766
74th percentile in Indiana
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 850
0th percentile in Indiana
Median Home Value
#145 of 771
81st percentile in Indiana
Poverty Rate
#354 of 849
58th percentile in Indiana
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#204 of 850
76th percentile in Indiana
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 Indiana only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
59th percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Franklin's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Franklin'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 Franklin's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$212,500Among the most affordablemore affordable than 54% 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
Franklin's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,307 of 15,516
More affordable than 66% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#602 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.7×, Franklin sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,307 of 15,516 and #602 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
$77,305Franklin, IN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Franklin, IN median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Franklin, IN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)24.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
25,999
Median Income
$77,305
Median Home Value
$212,500
Median Age
34.0
Poverty Rate
8.5%
Labor force participation
61.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
24.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1172.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
84.3
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
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Franklin's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
25,370 residents
2021
25,639 residents
2022
25,734 residents
2023
25,997 residents
2024
26,229 residents
2025
26,743 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
197
housing units authorized
Single-Family
197
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
7.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
93
93
0
$19.2M
2020
159
159
0
$35.5M
2021
175
175
0
$44.4M
2022
101
101
0
$30.8M
2023
115
115
0
$41.6M
2024
197
197
0
$52.0M
Permit volume increased 112% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
22.0 minutes
Drive Alone
77.3%
Carpool
9.9%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
10.1%
Other
1.0%
Based on 12,301 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Indiana statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $235
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Indiana at $235 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Indiana statewide averages, not a meter reading for Franklin. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Indiana's BEA cost-of-living index is 93.3 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Franklin is $1,096/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Indiana statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 45.5 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Indiana statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Franklin sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Franklin compares to similar-size Indiana 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.