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Place dossier plate
SheetMA-CHICOPEE-MA · Chicopee, MA 55,213 pop · income 46th 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 Chicopee
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Chicopee on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Valdosta · lowest
45,849
Valdosta · lowest
45,849 median HH income
38.8% of the leader · rank #1
Sparta · near
66,923
Sparta · near
66,923 median HH income
56.7% of the leader · rank #2
Chicopee · this city
66,927
Chicopee · this city
66,927 median HH income
56.7% of the leader · rank #3
Voorhees · near
66,927
Voorhees · near
66,927 median HH income
56.7% of the leader · rank #4
Waupun · near
66,931
Waupun · near
66,931 median HH income
56.7% of the leader · rank #5
Center Hill · near
66,932
Center Hill · near
66,932 median HH income
56.7% of the leader · rank #6
Medford · highest
118,089
Medford · highest
118,089 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 Chicopee 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: 55,213.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Chicopee - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Chicopee lands in the 46th percentile for household income and the 26th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
46th
percentile, household income
56th
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
26th
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: Chicopee, MA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 55,213 residents in Chicopee, a small city within Massachusetts. The typical household in Chicopee brings in $66,927 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 12.0%. Home values in Chicopee run a median of $251,800, and the median resident age is 41.1 years. Educational attainment runs 23.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 57.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 11 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 74% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2327.4 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Massachusetts carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Massachusetts at 105.8 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,261 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $330 across Massachusetts, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Chicopee report an average commute of 19.5 minutes, with 80.9% driving alone and 7.5% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 78.8 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Chicopee'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 comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Chicopee, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Chicopee?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 80.9%. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Chicopee?
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 Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Peabody (54,180 residents, $95,278 income); Methuen (53,043 residents, $103,270 income); Weymouth (57,786 residents, $100,077 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Valdosta, GA (55,222 residents); South Whittier, CA (55,201 residents); Perth Amboy, NJ (55,278 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.
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 17 public schools within the city match. 23.2% 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Chicopee?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2327.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 2% higher 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.
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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Chicopee?
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 12.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.8×
Home value
$251,800
Household income
$66,927
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Chicopee growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -146 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 11 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
2020 estimate
55,456
2025 estimate
55,310
Period change
-0.3%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Below median income · poverty 12.0% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
105.8 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, Massachusetts average
F
City profile score · Chicopee, MA
30/100
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.
Household income D
$66,927
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share D
23.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
12.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
105.8 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 F
567 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Chicopee profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 45/100 (D) · $66,927
Bachelor's+ share: 44/100 (D) · 23.2%
Poverty rate: 32/100 (F) · 12.0%
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Violent crime: 12/100 (F) · 567 /100k
Where Chicopee sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Chicopee'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 - Chicopee highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Chicopee, MA (this city): home $251,800, crime 2,327/100k
Valdosta, GA : home $165,300, crime 4,634/100k
Perth Amboy, NJ : home $339,200, crime 1,760/100k
West Haven, CT : home $265,200, crime 1,343/100k
Smyrna, TN : home $326,700, crime 2,665/100k
Bozeman, MT : home $614,900, crime 2,189/100k
Peabody, MA : home $566,200, crime 1,092/100k
Methuen, MA : home $472,200, crime 972/100k
Weymouth, MA : home $516,200, crime 1,043/100k
Medford, MA : home $715,500, crime 1,379/100k
Taunton, MA : home $388,200, crime 1,282/100k
Revere, MA : home $566,200, crime 1,980/100k
How does Chicopee compare to other US cities?
Chicopee measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income46% higher than other cities
Home value56% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety26% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Massachusetts and the picture shifts: Chicopee ranks #140 of 149 Massachusetts cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Chicopee against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Massachusetts only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Massachusetts-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Chicopee near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Chicopee ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Chicopee only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#198 of 233
15th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#227 of 240
5th percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#27 of 247
89th percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#222 of 247
10th percentile in Massachusetts
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 Massachusetts only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
46th percentile nationally for median household income · 26th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Chicopee's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Chicopee'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 Chicopee's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$251,80044th 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
Chicopee'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
#9,927 of 15,516
More affordable than 36% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#275 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.8×, Chicopee sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,927 of 15,516 and #275 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$66,927Chicopee, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Chicopee, MA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Chicopee, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)23.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)12.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
55,213
Median Income
$66,927
Median Home Value
$251,800
Median Age
41.1
Poverty Rate
12.0%
Labor force participation
57.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
23.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2327.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
566.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1760.8
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
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Chicopee's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
55,456 residents
2021
55,247 residents
2022
55,042 residents
2023
55,339 residents
2024
55,291 residents
2025
55,310 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
11
housing units authorized
Single-Family
11
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
43
30
13
$6.7M
2020
21
21
0
$3.6M
2021
24
24
0
$4.1M
2022
9
9
0
$1.9M
2023
13
13
0
$3.7M
2024
11
11
0
$3.1M
Permit volume decreased 74% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
19.5 minutes
Drive Alone
80.9%
Carpool
8.4%
Public Transit
1.1%
Walk
1.2%
Work from Home
7.5%
Other
0.9%
Based on 26,266 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Massachusetts statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $330
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Massachusetts at $330 (electricity about $160 , water and sewer about $60 ).
These are Massachusetts statewide averages, not a meter reading for Chicopee. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Massachusetts's BEA cost-of-living index is 105.8 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Chicopee is $2,261/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Massachusetts statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 78.8 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Massachusetts statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Chicopee sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Chicopee compares to similar-size Massachusetts 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.