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
SheetKY-BARDSTOWN-KY · Bardstown, KY 13,673 pop · income 19th pct · 11 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 Bardstown
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Bardstown on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
East Cleveland · lowest
22,883
East Cleveland · lowest
22,883 median HH income
15.6% of the leader · rank #1
Banks · near
49,773
Banks · near
49,773 median HH income
33.9% of the leader · rank #2
Bardstown · this city
49,781
Bardstown · this city
49,781 median HH income
33.9% of the leader · rank #3
Gila Bend · near
49,786
Gila Bend · near
49,786 median HH income
33.9% of the leader · rank #4
Fifth Ward · near
49,788
Fifth Ward · near
49,788 median HH income
33.9% of the leader · rank #5
Poteau · near
49,789
Poteau · near
49,789 median HH income
33.9% of the leader · rank #6
East Islip · highest
146,890
East Islip · highest
146,890 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 Bardstown 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: 13,673.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Bardstown - the verdict
Bardstown ranks in the 19th percentile for household income and the 44th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
19th
percentile, household income
40th
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
44th
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: Bardstown, KY
Kentucky's Bardstown is a small town, with 13,673 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Bardstown report a median income of $49,781 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 8.6%. Bardstown's housing stock carries a median value of $190,800, and the median resident age is 39.2 years. Educational attainment runs 24.7% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 59.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Bardstown reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1559.2 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 56.8°F with 51.6 inches of precipitation per year and 11.9 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Kentucky scores 90.2 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $984 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Kentucky's average monthly utility costs around $225 (state average). Workers in Bardstown report an average commute of 19.5 minutes, with 81.8% driving alone and 3.3% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 44.2 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Bardstown'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 comparison shortlist to work and mobility to climate and hazard context to population change to reported crime to within-city variation to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Bardstown, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Bardstown?
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 3.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Bardstown?
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 Kentucky, the closest population matches are Newport (14,039 residents, $58,422 income); Shepherdsville (14,351 residents, $71,250 income); Glasgow (15,141 residents, $42,417 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are St. James, NY (13,680 residents); East Cleveland, OH (13,666 residents); Shorewood, WI (13,682 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 does the journey to work look like in Bardstown?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 81.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 19.5 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.
What can 11 Census tracts reveal inside Bardstown?
PlainCities matches 11 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.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Bardstown?
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 56.8°F, with 51.6 inches of precipitation and 11.9 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Kentucky is 44.2 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
44.2
Annual precipitation
51.6 in
Mean temperature
56.8°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Bardstown growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +586 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.3% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. 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
13,575
2025 estimate
14,161
Period change
+4.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Bardstown?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1559.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 32% 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
1559.2
Violent rate
165.3
Property rate
1394.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the education layer cover for Bardstown?
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 12 public schools within the city match. 24.7% 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.
Poverty estimate
8.6%
Bachelor's degree+
24.7%
Matched public schools
12
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
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
90.2 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 C
165 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share D
24.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
8.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$49,781
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bardstown profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Violent crime: 55/100 (C) · 165 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 48/100 (D) · 24.7%
Poverty rate: 45/100 (D) · 8.6%
Household income: 20/100 (F) · $49,781
Where Bardstown sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Bardstown'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 - Bardstown highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Bardstown, KY (this city): home $190,800, crime 1,559/100k
East Cleveland, OH : home $68,900, crime 4,409/100k
Shorewood, WI : home $423,600, crime 1,724/100k
Beaufort, SC : home $310,400, crime 4,269/100k
Newport, KY : home $221,100, crime 4,167/100k
Shepherdsville, KY : home $202,300, crime 1,927/100k
Glasgow, KY : home $147,700, crime 2,277/100k
Somerset, KY : home $140,900, crime 1,334/100k
Lawrenceburg, KY : home $185,400, crime 596/100k
Shively, KY : home $139,200, crime 3,586/100k
How does Bardstown compare to other US cities?
Here's how Bardstown stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income19% higher than other cities
Home value40% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety44% 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 Kentucky alone, Bardstown ranks #143 of 181 Kentucky 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 Bardstown against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Kentucky only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Kentucky-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Bardstown near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Bardstown ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Bardstown only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#290 of 485
40th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#155 of 484
68th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#311 of 519
40th percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#190 of 520
63rd percentile in Kentucky
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 Kentucky only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
19th percentile nationally for median household income · 44th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Bardstown's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Bardstown'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 Bardstown's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$190,800Among the most affordablemore affordable than 60% 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
Bardstown's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,178 of 15,516
More affordable than 34% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,819 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.8×, Bardstown sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,178 of 15,516 and #1,819 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
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
$49,781Bardstown, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Bardstown, KY median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Bardstown, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)24.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)59.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
13,673
Median Income
$49,781
Median Home Value
$190,800
Median Age
39.2
Poverty Rate
8.6%
Labor force participation
59.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
24.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1559.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
165.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1394.0
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
56.8°F
Annual Precipitation
51.6"
Annual Snowfall
11.9"
Schools
Total Schools
12
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Bardstown's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
13,575 residents
2021
13,666 residents
2022
13,721 residents
2023
13,862 residents
2024
14,051 residents
2025
14,161 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
19.5 minutes
Drive Alone
81.8%
Carpool
8.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.4%
Work from Home
3.3%
Other
5.0%
Based on 6,327 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Kentucky statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Kentucky at $225 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Kentucky statewide averages, not a meter reading for Bardstown. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Kentucky's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.2 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Bardstown is $984/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Kentucky statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 44.2 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Kentucky statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Bardstown sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Bardstown compares to similar-size Kentucky 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.