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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-MARION-KY · Marion, KY 2,908 pop · income 8th pct · 4 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 Marion
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Marion on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Ocilla · lowest
40,677
Ocilla · lowest
40,677 median HH income
21.6% of the leader · rank #1
Crossville · near
40,682
Crossville · near
40,682 median HH income
21.6% of the leader · rank #2
Marion · this city
40,691
Marion · this city
40,691 median HH income
21.6% of the leader · rank #3
La Mesa · near
40,694
La Mesa · near
40,694 median HH income
21.6% of the leader · rank #4
Fifth Street · near
40,699
Fifth Street · near
40,699 median HH income
21.6% of the leader · rank #5
Shenandoah · near
40,702
Shenandoah · near
40,702 median HH income
21.6% of the leader · rank #6
Indian Hills · highest
188,750
Indian Hills · highest
188,750 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 Marion 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: 2,908.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Marion - the verdict
Nationally, Marion sits in the 8th percentile for household income and the 55th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
8th
percentile, household income
11th
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
55th
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: Marion, KY
Kentucky's Marion is a small town, with 2,908 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $40,691 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 16.0%. Marion's housing stock carries a median value of $104,100, and the median resident age is 47.5 years. Educational attainment runs 9.8% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 46.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 48 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 4700% from five years earlier. Marion reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1212.3 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: the state registers 90.2 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 $984 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Kentucky run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. 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 Marion'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 population change to comparison shortlist to housing and income to schools and households to reported crime to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Marion, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can 4 Census tracts reveal inside Marion?
PlainCities matches 4 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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -37 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 48 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Marion?
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 Brandenburg (2,907 residents, $48,281 income); Sorgho (2,928 residents, $118,688 income); Eddyville (2,945 residents, $58,527 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Lake Shastina, CA (2,908 residents); Mount Gilead, OH (2,909 residents); Desert Hills, AZ (2,910 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Marion?
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 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 16.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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 Marion?
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 4 public schools within the city match. 9.8% 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
16.0%
Bachelor's degree+
9.8%
Matched public schools
4
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Marion?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1212.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 47% 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
1212.3
Violent rate
34.6
Property rate
1177.7
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Marion?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 66.2%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Drive alone
66.2%
Work from home
6.3%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,096 workers age 16+.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 16.0% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.2 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kentucky average
D
City profile score · Marion, KY
42/100
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
35 /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.
Poverty rate F
16.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$40,691
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
9.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Marion profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 88/100 (A) · 35 /100k
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Poverty rate: 21/100 (F) · 16.0%
Household income: 8/100 (F) · $40,691
Bachelor's+ share: 6/100 (F) · 9.8%
Where Marion sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Marion'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 - Marion highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Marion, KY (this city): home $104,100, crime 1,212/100k
Lake Shastina, CA : home $331,900, crime 510/100k
Mount Gilead, OH : home $156,200, crime 367/100k
Brandenburg, KY : home $208,100, crime 642/100k
Eddyville, KY : home $188,500, crime 40/100k
Springfield, KY : home $154,800, crime 371/100k
Indian Hills, KY : home $666,200, crime 1,864/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Marion compare to other US cities?
Here's how Marion stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income8% higher than other cities
Home value11% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety55% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Kentucky and the picture shifts: Marion ranks #126 of 181 Kentucky cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Marion 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 Marion near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Marion ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Marion only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#369 of 485
24th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#367 of 484
24th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#193 of 519
62nd percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#393 of 520
24th 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
8th percentile nationally for median household income · 55th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Marion's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Marion'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 Marion's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$104,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 89% 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
Marion's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,306 of 15,516
More affordable than 72% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,855 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.6×, Marion sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,306 of 15,516 and #3,855 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
$40,691Marion, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Marion, 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 Marion, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)9.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)16.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)46.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
2,908
Median Income
$40,691
Median Home Value
$104,100
Median Age
47.5
Poverty Rate
16.0%
Labor force participation
46.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
9.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1212.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
34.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1177.7
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
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Marion's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
2,916 residents
2021
2,892 residents
2022
2,883 residents
2023
2,885 residents
2024
2,874 residents
2025
2,879 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
48
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
48
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
16.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
1
1
0
$0.1M
2020
1
1
0
$0.1M
2021
1
1
0
$0.1M
2022
1
1
0
$0.1M
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
48
0
48
$5.9M
Permit volume increased 4700% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
66.2%
Carpool
24.3%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
3.2%
Work from Home
6.3%
Based on 1,096 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 Marion. 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 Marion 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 Marion sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Marion 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 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.