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Place dossier plate
SheetKS-FORT-SCOTT-KS · Fort Scott, KS 7,551 pop · income 36th pct · 5 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 Fort Scott
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Fort Scott on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Independence · lowest
49,164
Independence · lowest
49,164 median HH income
35.2% of the leader · rank #1
Yonah · near
60,791
Yonah · near
60,791 median HH income
43.5% of the leader · rank #2
Fairmont · near
60,791
Fairmont · near
60,791 median HH income
43.5% of the leader · rank #3
Lincoln · near
60,793
Lincoln · near
60,793 median HH income
43.5% of the leader · rank #4
Youngwood · near
60,795
Youngwood · near
60,795 median HH income
43.5% of the leader · rank #5
Fort Scott · this city
60,799
Fort Scott · this city
60,799 median HH income
43.5% of the leader · rank #6
Laurel Hill · highest
139,803
Laurel Hill · highest
139,803 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 Fort Scott 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: 7,551.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Fort Scott - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Fort Scott places in the 36th percentile for household income and the 33rd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
36th
percentile, household income
6th
percentile, home value
6th
percentile, median rent
33rd
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: Fort Scott, KS
7,551 people live in Fort Scott, Kansas - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Fort Scott households earn a median of $60,799 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.9%. Typical homes in Fort Scott are valued around $89,400, and the median resident age is 39.2 years. About 21.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 58.8% 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 (Low Activity). Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1980.7 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 57.0°F with 44.5 inches of precipitation per year and 8.4 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Kansas run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Kansas scores 90.1 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $947 per month statewide. 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 Fort Scott'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 schools and households to comparison shortlist to within-city variation to work and mobility to population change to climate and hazard context to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Fort Scott, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Fort Scott?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 1.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.9%, 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 education layer cover for Fort Scott?
The NCES join finds 4 public schools within the city match. 21.7% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Fort Scott?
Within Kansas, the closest population matches are Wellington (7,643 residents, $49,526 income); Park City (7,726 residents, $70,317 income); Bonner Springs (7,735 residents, $81,865 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Laurel Hill, VA (7,551 residents); Mount Sterling, KY (7,549 residents); Northridge, OH (7,546 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.
What can 5 Census tracts reveal inside Fort Scott?
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Fort Scott?
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 67.0%. 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
13.3%
Drive alone
67.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 3,554 workers age 16+.
Is Fort Scott 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 -25 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.3% 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
-0.3%
2025 estimate
7,500
2020 estimate
7,525
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What physical conditions frame life in Fort Scott?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 57.0°F, with 44.5 inches of precipitation and 8.4 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Kansas is 29.9 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.
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.
Mean temperature
57.0°F
Annual precipitation
44.5 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
29.9
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Fort Scott?
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 1980.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 13% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1690.2
Violent rate
290.5
Total reported rate
1980.7
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 6.9% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.1 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kansas average
D
City profile score · Fort Scott, KS
49/100
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.
Poverty rate C-
6.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
21.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$60,799
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
291 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Fort Scott profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.1 index
Poverty rate: 53/100 (C-) · 6.9%
Bachelor's+ share: 39/100 (F) · 21.7%
Household income: 36/100 (F) · $60,799
Violent crime: 34/100 (F) · 291 /100k
Where Fort Scott sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Fort Scott'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 - Fort Scott highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Fort Scott, KS (this city): home $89,400, crime 1,981/100k
Mount Sterling, KY : home $178,200, crime 1,413/100k
Wellington, KS : home $90,000, crime 2,789/100k
Park City, KS : home $163,800, crime 2,603/100k
Bonner Springs, KS : home $223,800, crime 1,992/100k
Basehor, KS : home $314,100, crime 738/100k
Roeland Park, KS : home $262,700, crime 2,462/100k
Independence, KS : home $78,500, crime 4,128/100k
How does Fort Scott compare to other US cities?
Here's how Fort Scott stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income36% higher than other cities
Home value6% pricier than other cities
Median rent6% pricier than other cities
Safety33% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Kansas and the picture shifts: Fort Scott ranks #75 of 109 Kansas cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Fort Scott 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 Fort Scott near the bottom of Kansas's cities
Among the 552 Kansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Fort Scott ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Fort Scott only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#254 of 527
52nd percentile in Kansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 552
0th percentile in Kansas
Median Home Value
#292 of 527
45th percentile in Kansas
Poverty Rate
#276 of 552
49th percentile in Kansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#243 of 552
55th 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
36th percentile nationally for median household income · 33rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Fort Scott's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Fort Scott'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 Fort Scott's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$89,400Among the most affordablemore affordable than 94% 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
Fort Scott's home-value-to-income ratio: 1.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#350 of 15,516
More affordable than 98% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#344 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 1.5×, Fort Scott sits in the affordable band:
national rank #350 of 15,516 and #344 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
$60,799Fort Scott, KS median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Fort Scott, 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 Fort Scott, KS.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
7,551
Median Income
$60,799
Median Home Value
$89,400
Median Age
39.2
Poverty Rate
6.9%
Labor force participation
58.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1980.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
290.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1690.2
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
57.0°F
Annual Precipitation
44.5"
Annual Snowfall
8.4"
Schools
Total Schools
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Fort Scott's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
7,525 residents
2021
7,509 residents
2022
7,574 residents
2023
7,555 residents
2024
7,555 residents
2025
7,500 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Low Activity
Total Permits (2024)
9
housing units authorized
Single-Family
3
detached homes
Multifamily
6
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
0
0
0
-
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
8
0
8
$0.3M
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
4
4
0
$0.5M
2024
9
3
6
$1.2M
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
67.0%
Carpool
18.0%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.2%
Work from Home
13.3%
Based on 3,554 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 Fort Scott. 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 Fort Scott 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 Fort Scott sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Fort Scott 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, 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.