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-MURRAY-KY · Murray, KY 17,888 pop · income 8th 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 Murray
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Murray on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Portsmouth · lowest
35,319
Portsmouth · lowest
35,319 median HH income
29.5% of the leader · rank #1
Cottonwood CD… · near
40,339
Cottonwood CD… · near
40,339 median HH income
33.7% of the leader · rank #2
Rodney · near
40,341
Rodney · near
40,341 median HH income
33.7% of the leader · rank #3
Murray · this city
40,348
Murray · this city
40,348 median HH income
33.7% of the leader · rank #4
Turley · near
40,350
Turley · near
40,350 median HH income
33.7% of the leader · rank #5
Belen · near
40,354
Belen · near
40,354 median HH income
33.7% of the leader · rank #6
Parole · highest
119,591
Parole · highest
119,591 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 Murray 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: 17,888.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Murray - the verdict
Murray ranks in the 8th percentile for household income and the 45th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
8th
percentile, household income
41st
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
45th
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: Murray, KY
Murray is a small town in Kentucky, home to 17,888 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Murray brings in $40,348 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 16.4%. Home values in Murray run a median of $193,300, and the median resident age is 25.7 years. Educational attainment runs 37.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 54.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 81 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 102% from five years earlier. Murray reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1528.2 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). NOAA puts Murray's yearly average temperature at 58.8°F with 58.1 inches of precipitation per year and 6.5 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. 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 Murray'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 work and mobility to within-city variation to population change to climate and hazard context to reported crime to housing and income to schools and households to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Murray, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Murray?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 68.3%. 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.
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,195 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +6.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 81 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 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Murray?
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); Mount Washington (18,228 residents, $93,852 income); St. Matthews (17,491 residents, $80,716 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hybla Valley, VA (17,877 residents); Cary, IL (17,875 residents); Parole, MD (17,910 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.
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 Murray?
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 58.8°F, with 58.1 inches of precipitation and 6.5 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
58.1 in
Mean temperature
58.8°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Murray?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1528.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 33% 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
1528.2
Violent rate
99.0
Property rate
1429.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Murray?
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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 16.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.8×
Home value
$193,300
Household income
$40,348
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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. 37.0% 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
16.4%
Bachelor's degree+
37.0%
Matched public schools
12
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 16.4% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.2 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Kentucky average
D
City profile score · Murray, KY
47/100
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.
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 B
99 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B
37.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
16.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$40,348
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Murray profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Violent crime: 71/100 (B) · 99 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 70/100 (B) · 37.0%
Poverty rate: 20/100 (F) · 16.4%
Household income: 7/100 (F) · $40,348
Where Murray sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Murray'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 - Murray highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Murray, KY (this city): home $193,300, crime 1,528/100k
Cary, IL : home $287,000, crime 488/100k
Conyers, GA : home $218,000, crime 2,851/100k
Ashtabula, OH : home $99,200, crime 1,106/100k
Portsmouth, OH : home $95,000, crime 4,572/100k
Mount Washington, KY : home $253,700, crime 590/100k
St. Matthews, KY : home $325,700, crime 5,223/100k
Shelbyville, KY : home $238,600, crime 1,142/100k
Fort Thomas, KY : home $301,400, crime 535/100k
Danville, KY : home $202,200, crime 1,155/100k
How does Murray compare to other US cities?
Murray measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income8% higher than other cities
Home value41% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety45% 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: Murray ranks #141 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 Murray 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 Murray near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Murray ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Murray only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#371 of 485
24th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#152 of 484
69th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#188 of 519
63rd percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#121 of 520
77th 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 · 45th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Murray's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Murray'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 Murray's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$193,300Among 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
Murray's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#12,538 of 15,516
More affordable than 19% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,510 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.8×, Murray sits in the moderate band:
national rank #12,538 of 15,516 and #2,510 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
$40,348Murray, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Murray, 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 Murray, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)37.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)16.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)54.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
17,888
Median Income
$40,348
Median Home Value
$193,300
Median Age
25.7
Poverty Rate
16.4%
Labor force participation
54.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
37.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1528.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
99.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1429.3
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
58.8°F
Annual Precipitation
58.1"
Annual Snowfall
6.5"
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
Murray's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,769 residents
2021
17,815 residents
2022
17,952 residents
2023
18,228 residents
2024
18,531 residents
2025
18,964 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
81
housing units authorized
Single-Family
15
detached homes
Multifamily
66
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
4.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
40
14
26
$4.5M
2020
51
19
32
$5.4M
2021
137
23
114
$9.8M
2022
87
32
55
$8.0M
2023
61
13
48
$9.9M
2024
81
15
66
$14.0M
Permit volume increased 102% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
68.3%
Carpool
9.3%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
15.1%
Work from Home
5.7%
Other
1.5%
Based on 8,196 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 Murray. 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 Murray 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 Murray sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Murray 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 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.