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Place dossier plate
SheetKS-CLAY-CENTER-KS · Clay Center, KS 4,148 pop · income 30th pct · 2 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 Clay Center
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Clay Center on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Georgetown · lowest
40,283
Georgetown · lowest
40,283 median HH income
25.2% of the leader · rank #1
Oxford · near
56,417
Oxford · near
56,417 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #2
Grove City · near
56,420
Grove City · near
56,420 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #3
Clay Center · this city
56,422
Clay Center · this city
56,422 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #4
Beebe · near
56,424
Beebe · near
56,424 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #5
White Sulphur… · near
56,424
White Sulphur… · near
56,424 median HH income
35.3% of the leader · rank #6
Fairway · highest
159,821
Fairway · highest
159,821 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 Clay Center 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: 4,148.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Clay Center - the verdict
Clay Center ranks in the 30th percentile for household income and the 53rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
30th
percentile, household income
22nd
percentile, home value
6th
percentile, median rent
53rd
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: Clay Center, KS
4,148 people live in Clay Center, Kansas - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Clay Center brings in $56,422 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 15.1%. Home values in Clay Center run a median of $133,600, and the median resident age is 42.1 years. 17.6% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 48.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 9 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 200% from five years earlier. Clay Center reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1280.5 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Kansas run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Kansas at 90.1 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $947 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Kansas's average monthly utility costs around $217 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 29.9 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Clay Center'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 schools and households to reported crime to housing and income to population change to work and mobility to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Clay Center, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Within-city variation
What can 2 Census tracts reveal inside Clay Center?
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.
What does the education layer cover for Clay Center?
The NCES join finds 5 public schools within the city match. 17.6% 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.
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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Clay Center?
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 1280.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 44% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Which cities make useful reference points for Clay Center?
Within Kansas, the closest population matches are Fairway (4,177 residents, $159,821 income); Wamego (4,205 residents, $82,756 income); Hugoton (4,065 residents, $60,437 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Roosevelt Park, MI (4,148 residents); Dawsonville, GA (4,147 residents); Georgetown, OH (4,147 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 Clay Center?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.1%, 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
$56,422
Home value
$133,600
Value / income
2.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Clay Center 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 -134 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -3.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 9 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
-3.2%
2025 estimate
4,061
2020 estimate
4,195
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Clay Center?
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 84.2%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.0%
Work from home
6.6%
Drive alone
84.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,580 workers age 16+.
Below median income · poverty 15.1% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.1 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kansas average
D
City profile score · Clay Center, KS
46/100
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.
Cost of living A
90.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime B-
123 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$56,422
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
17.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Clay Center profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.1 index
Violent crime: 65/100 (B-) · 123 /100k
Household income: 29/100 (F) · $56,422
Bachelor's+ share: 27/100 (F) · 17.6%
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.1%
Where Clay Center sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Clay Center'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 - Clay Center highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Clay Center, KS (this city): home $133,600, crime 1,281/100k
Roosevelt Park, MI : home $178,600, crime 5,898/100k
Georgetown, OH : home $108,900, crime 1,054/100k
Linden, MI : home $232,300, crime 336/100k
Rosemont, IL : home $403,600, crime 7,116/100k
Jacksboro, TX : home $141,900, crime 780/100k
Fairway, KS : home $626,600, crime 530/100k
Hugoton, KS : home $118,400, crime 448/100k
Scott City, KS : home $166,400, crime 723/100k
How does Clay Center compare to other US cities?
Where Clay Center sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income30% higher than other cities
Home value22% pricier than other cities
Median rent6% pricier than other cities
Safety53% 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 Kansas alone, Clay Center ranks #46 of 109 Kansas 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 Clay Center against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Kansas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Kansas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Clay Center near the bottom of Kansas's cities
Among the 552 Kansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Clay Center ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Clay Center only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#323 of 527
39th percentile in Kansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 552
0th percentile in Kansas
Median Home Value
#147 of 527
72nd percentile in Kansas
Poverty Rate
#87 of 552
84th percentile in Kansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#341 of 552
38th percentile in Kansas
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 Kansas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
30th percentile nationally for median household income · 53rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Clay Center's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Clay Center'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 Clay Center's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$133,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 78% 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
Clay Center's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#3,321 of 15,516
More affordable than 79% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,039 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.4×, Clay Center sits in the affordable band:
national rank #3,321 of 15,516 and #3,039 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$56,422Clay Center, KS median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Clay Center, KS median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Clay Center, KS.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)17.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)48.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,148
Median Income
$56,422
Median Home Value
$133,600
Median Age
42.1
Poverty Rate
15.1%
Labor force participation
48.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
17.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1280.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
123.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1157.4
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.
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Clay Center's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,195 residents
2021
4,167 residents
2022
4,120 residents
2023
4,090 residents
2024
4,085 residents
2025
4,061 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
9
housing units authorized
Single-Family
9
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
3
3
0
$0.8M
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
5
5
0
$1.3M
2023
2
2
0
$0.7M
2024
9
9
0
$1.9M
Permit volume increased 200% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
84.2%
Carpool
6.8%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.9%
Work from Home
6.6%
Other
1.5%
Based on 1,580 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Kansas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $217
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Kansas at $217 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Kansas statewide averages, not a meter reading for Clay Center. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Kansas's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.1 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Clay Center is $947/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Kansas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 29.9 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Kansas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Clay Center sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Clay Center compares to similar-size Kansas 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.