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Place dossier plate
SheetKS-SILVER-LAKE-KS · Silver Lake, KS 1,549 pop · income 30th 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 Silver Lake
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Silver Lake on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hill City · lowest
49,899
Hill City · lowest
49,899 median HH income
20.8% of the leader · rank #1
Greenville · near
56,850
Greenville · near
56,850 median HH income
23.6% of the leader · rank #2
Loraine · near
56,855
Loraine · near
56,855 median HH income
23.6% of the leader · rank #3
Silver Lake · this city
56,857
Silver Lake · this city
56,857 median HH income
23.6% of the leader · rank #4
Bryan · near
56,861
Bryan · near
56,861 median HH income
23.7% of the leader · rank #5
Lake Charles · near
56,864
Lake Charles · near
56,864 median HH income
23.7% of the leader · rank #6
Golden's Brid… · highest
240,417
Golden's Brid… · highest
240,417 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
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Silver Lake on ACS population and median household income
. 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: 1,549.
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Silver Lake places in the 30th percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
30th
percentile, household income
33rd
percentile, home value
6th
percentile, median rent
📝 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: Silver Lake, KS
1,549 people live in Silver Lake, Kansas - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $56,857 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 2.7%. Silver Lake's housing stock carries a median value of $168,900, and the median resident age is 39.7 years. Educational attainment runs 35.9% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 61.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 0 residential units were authorized in 2024 (No Permits).
Living costs in Kansas run below the national norm: the state registers 90.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. 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 Silver Lake'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 population change to housing and income 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 Silver Lake, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, annual population history.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Silver Lake?
The NCES join finds 2 public schools within the city match. 35.9% 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 matched institution count is small, so district boundaries and schools outside the city line may matter more than the municipal count suggests. Use the number as a coverage cue, then verify attendance zones with the district before making a household decision.
Is Silver Lake 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 -29 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 0 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
How far does income reach against housing in Silver Lake?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.7%, 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. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Silver Lake?
Within Kansas, the closest population matches are Hill City (1,536 residents, $49,899 income); Douglass (1,523 residents, $70,735 income); Stockton (1,521 residents, $60,964 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Avilla, AR (1,549 residents); Higganum, CT (1,549 residents); Black Diamond, FL (1,549 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.
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 Silver Lake?
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 78.7%. 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
13.1%
Drive alone
78.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 704 workers age 16+.
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 A-
2.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B-
35.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$56,857
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Silver Lake profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.1 index
Poverty rate: 81/100 (A-) · 2.7%
Bachelor's+ share: 68/100 (B-) · 35.9%
Household income: 30/100 (F) · $56,857
How does Silver Lake compare to other US cities?
Here's how Silver Lake stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income30% higher than other cities
Home value33% pricier than other cities
Median rent6% pricier than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Silver Lake 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 Silver Lake near the bottom of Kansas's cities
Among the 552 Kansas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Silver Lake ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Silver Lake only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#314 of 527
40th percentile in Kansas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 552
0th percentile in Kansas
Median Home Value
#82 of 527
84th percentile in Kansas
Poverty Rate
#428 of 552
22nd percentile in Kansas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#64 of 552
88th 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. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Silver Lake's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$168,900Among the most affordablemore affordable than 67% 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
Silver Lake's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,526 of 15,516
More affordable than 58% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#5,550 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.0×, Silver Lake sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,526 of 15,516 and #5,550 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
$56,857Silver Lake, KS median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Silver Lake, 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 Silver Lake, KS.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)35.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
1,549
Median Income
$56,857
Median Home Value
$168,900
Median Age
39.7
Poverty Rate
2.7%
Labor force participation
61.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
35.9%
Schools
Total Schools
2
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Silver Lake's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
1,345 residents
2021
1,335 residents
2022
1,319 residents
2023
1,318 residents
2024
1,317 residents
2025
1,316 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
Total Permits (2024)
0
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
0
0
0
-
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
0
0
0
-
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
78.7%
Carpool
4.1%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
3.4%
Work from Home
13.1%
Other
0.7%
Based on 704 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 Silver Lake. 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 Silver Lake 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 Silver Lake sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Silver Lake 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, 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.