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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-DRY-RIDGE-KY · Dry Ridge, KY 2,250 pop · income 25th 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 Dry Ridge
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Dry Ridge on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Harlan · lowest
30,365
Harlan · lowest
30,365 median HH income
36.5% of the leader · rank #1
Van Wert · near
53,632
Van Wert · near
53,632 median HH income
64.5% of the leader · rank #2
Nunda · near
53,636
Nunda · near
53,636 median HH income
64.5% of the leader · rank #3
Dry Ridge · this city
53,641
Dry Ridge · this city
53,641 median HH income
64.5% of the leader · rank #4
Port LaBelle · near
53,648
Port LaBelle · near
53,648 median HH income
64.5% of the leader · rank #5
Harmony · near
53,650
Harmony · near
53,650 median HH income
64.5% of the leader · rank #6
Alpha · highest
83,125
Alpha · highest
83,125 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 Dry Ridge 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: 2,250.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Dry Ridge - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Dry Ridge places in the 25th percentile for household income and the 43rd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
25th
percentile, household income
41st
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
43rd
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: Dry Ridge, KY
2,250 people live in Dry Ridge, Kentucky - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Dry Ridge brings in $53,641 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 21.0%. Dry Ridge's housing stock carries a median value of $193,200, and the median resident age is 31.9 years. 20.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Dry Ridge reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1584.4 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Kentucky at 90.2 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $984 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $225 across Kentucky, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. 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 Dry Ridge'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 reported crime to work and mobility to schools and households to population change to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Dry Ridge, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Dry Ridge?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 21.0%, 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Dry Ridge?
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 1584.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 31% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
What does the journey to work look like in Dry Ridge?
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 84.3%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Which cities make useful reference points for Dry Ridge?
Within Kentucky, the closest population matches are Brooks (2,246 residents, $70,947 income); Mount Vernon (2,259 residents, $38,639 income); Cumberland (2,234 residents, $35,309 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Watts Mills, SC (2,250 residents); Alpha, NJ (2,249 residents); Louisa, VA (2,249 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Dry Ridge?
The NCES join finds 5 public schools within the city match. 20.2% 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.
Matched public schools
5
Bachelor's degree+
20.2%
Poverty estimate
21.0%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Is Dry Ridge growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +76 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +3.5% 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.
Period change
+3.5%
2025 estimate
2,249
2020 estimate
2,173
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Below median income · poverty 21.0% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.2 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kentucky average
C-
City profile score · Dry Ridge, KY
50/100
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 A+
0 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$53,641
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
21.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Dry Ridge profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 97/100 (A+) · 0 /100k
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Bachelor's+ share: 35/100 (F) · 20.2%
Household income: 25/100 (F) · $53,641
Poverty rate: 11/100 (F) · 21.0%
Where Dry Ridge sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Dry Ridge'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 - Dry Ridge highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Dry Ridge, KY (this city): home $193,200, crime 1,584/100k
Alpha, NJ : home $250,400, crime 1,019/100k
Louisa, VA : home $308,200, crime 1,859/100k
Mount Vernon, KY : home $100,500, crime 529/100k
Cumberland, KY : home $61,600, crime 505/100k
Greensburg, KY : home $117,700, crime 1,377/100k
Lebanon Junction, KY : home $134,700, crime 276/100k
Harlan, KY : home $112,500, crime 937/100k
How does Dry Ridge compare to other US cities?
Here's how Dry Ridge stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income25% higher than other cities
Home value41% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety43% 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 Kentucky, Dry Ridge ranks #144 of 181 Kentucky 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 Dry Ridge 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 Dry Ridge near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Dry Ridge ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Dry Ridge only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#253 of 485
48th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#153 of 484
68th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#135 of 519
74th percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#228 of 520
56th 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
25th percentile nationally for median household income · 43rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Dry Ridge's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Dry Ridge'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 Dry Ridge's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$193,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 59% 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
Dry Ridge's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,367 of 15,516
More affordable than 40% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,513 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.6×, Dry Ridge sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,367 of 15,516 and #7,513 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$53,641Dry Ridge, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Dry Ridge, 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 Dry Ridge, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)21.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
2,250
Median Income
$53,641
Median Home Value
$193,200
Median Age
31.9
Poverty Rate
21.0%
Labor force participation
61.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1584.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1584.4
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
Dry Ridge's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
2,173 residents
2021
2,193 residents
2022
2,202 residents
2023
2,211 residents
2024
2,216 residents
2025
2,249 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
84.3%
Carpool
2.7%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
7.4%
Work from Home
5.1%
Based on 984 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 Dry Ridge. 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 Dry Ridge 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 Dry Ridge sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Dry Ridge 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, 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.