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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-MOUNT-WASHINGTON-KY · Mount Washington, KY 18,228 pop · income 74th pct · 22 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 Mount Washington
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Mount Washington on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Johnstown · lowest
34,784
Johnstown · lowest
34,784 median HH income
28.4% of the leader · rank #1
Wendell · near
93,848
Wendell · near
93,848 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #2
West Hills · near
93,851
West Hills · near
93,851 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #3
Mount Washing… · this city
93,852
Mount Washing… · this city
93,852 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #4
Lazy Mountain · near
93,854
Lazy Mountain · near
93,854 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #5
Adairsville · near
93,854
Adairsville · near
93,854 median HH income
76.5% of the leader · rank #6
Shorewood · highest
122,648
Shorewood · highest
122,648 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 Mount Washington 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: 18,228.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Mount Washington - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Mount Washington lands in the 74th percentile for household income and the 82nd percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
74th
percentile, household income
56th
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
82nd
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: Mount Washington, KY
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 18,228 residents in Mount Washington, a small town within Kentucky. Median household income here is $93,852 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 2.5%. Typical homes in Mount Washington are valued around $253,700, and the median resident age is 38.0 years. About 25.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 67.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Mount Washington reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 590.1 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
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. 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. Workers in Mount Washington report an average commute of 27.8 minutes, with 79.6% driving alone and 10.3% 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 Mount Washington'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 population change to housing and income to schools and households to reported crime to comparison shortlist to within-city variation to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Mount Washington, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Is Mount Washington growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +876 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.8% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Mount Washington?
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 2.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Mount Washington?
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 Burlington (18,090 residents, $101,550 income); Murray (17,888 residents, $40,348 income); St. Matthews (17,491 residents, $80,716 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Franklin Park, IL (18,233 residents); Shorewood, IL (18,218 residents); Trenton, MI (18,242 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 can 22 Census tracts reveal inside Mount Washington?
PlainCities matches 22 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Mount Washington?
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 7 public schools within the city match. 25.0% 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
2.5%
Bachelor's degree+
25.0%
Matched public schools
7
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Mount Washington?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 590.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 74% 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
590.1
Violent rate
31.9
Property rate
558.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Mount Washington?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 79.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 27.8 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.
Drive alone
79.6%
Work from home
10.3%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 9,242 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.
Violent crime A
32 /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 A-
2.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income B
$93,852
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share D
25.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Mount Washington profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 89/100 (A) · 32 /100k
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Poverty rate: 82/100 (A-) · 2.5%
Household income: 73/100 (B) · $93,852
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 25.0%
Where Mount Washington sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Mount Washington'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 - Mount Washington highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Mount Washington, KY (this city): home $253,700, crime 590/100k
Franklin Park, IL : home $261,700, crime 1,576/100k
Shorewood, IL : home $324,600, crime 911/100k
Trenton, MI : home $202,400, crime 576/100k
Sycamore, IL : home $254,200, crime 1,053/100k
Johnstown, PA : home $42,100, crime 3,221/100k
Somerset, MA : home $389,400, crime 718/100k
Murray, KY : home $193,300, crime 1,528/100k
St. Matthews, KY : home $325,700, crime 5,223/100k
Shelbyville, KY : home $238,600, crime 1,142/100k
Winchester, KY : home $180,400, crime 2,961/100k
Fort Thomas, KY : home $301,400, crime 535/100k
How does Mount Washington compare to other US cities?
Where Mount Washington sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income74% higher than other cities
Home value56% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety82% 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: Mount Washington ranks #69 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 Mount Washington 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 Mount Washington near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Mount Washington ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Mount Washington only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#89 of 485
82nd percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#92 of 484
81st percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#406 of 519
21st percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#187 of 520
64th 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
74th percentile nationally for median household income · 82nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Mount Washington's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Mount Washington'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 Mount Washington's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$253,70044th percentilemore affordable than 44% 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
Mount Washington's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,051 of 15,516
More affordable than 67% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#553 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.7×, Mount Washington sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,051 of 15,516 and #553 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$93,852Mount Washington, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Mount Washington, 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 Mount Washington, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
18,228
Median Income
$93,852
Median Home Value
$253,700
Median Age
38.0
Poverty Rate
2.5%
Labor force participation
67.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
590.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
31.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
558.2
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.
Schools
Total Schools
7
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Mount Washington's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
18,113 residents
2021
18,255 residents
2022
18,458 residents
2023
18,693 residents
2024
18,857 residents
2025
18,989 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
27.8 minutes
Drive Alone
79.6%
Carpool
9.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.5%
Work from Home
10.3%
Based on 9,242 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 Mount Washington. 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 Mount Washington 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 Mount Washington sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Mount Washington 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.