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Place dossier plate
SheetMA-GLOUCESTER-MA · Gloucester, MA 29,862 pop · income 69th 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 Gloucester
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Gloucester on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hazleton · lowest
43,379
Hazleton · lowest
43,379 median HH income
17.4% of the leader · rank #1
Woodland · near
87,880
Woodland · near
87,880 median HH income
35.2% of the leader · rank #2
West Branch · near
87,891
West Branch · near
87,891 median HH income
35.2% of the leader · rank #3
Woodlawn CDP… · near
87,897
Woodlawn CDP… · near
87,897 median HH income
35.2% of the leader · rank #4
Gloucester · this city
87,898
Gloucester · this city
87,898 median HH income
35.2% of the leader · rank #5
Spout Springs · near
87,905
Spout Springs · near
87,905 median HH income
35.2% of the leader · rank #6
Wellesley · highest
250,001
Wellesley · highest
250,001 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 Gloucester 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: 29,862.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Gloucester - the verdict
Gloucester ranks in the 69th percentile for household income and the 71st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
69th
percentile, household income
89th
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
71st
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: Gloucester, MA
Gloucester is a small city in Massachusetts, home to 29,862 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $87,898 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 5.9%. Typical homes in Gloucester are valued around $587,800, and the median resident age is 51.0 years. Educational attainment runs 38.8% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 59.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 79 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Growing), up 10% from five years earlier. Gloucester reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 830.1 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).
Massachusetts carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Massachusetts scores 105.8 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,261 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Massachusetts's average monthly utility costs around $330 (state average). FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 78.8 out of 100 (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Gloucester'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 reported crime to schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Gloucester, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, local building permits, matched public-school count.
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.
1. Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Gloucester?
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 830.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 64% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
What does the education layer cover for Gloucester?
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 38.8% 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.
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.
What does the journey to work look like in Gloucester?
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 74.1%. 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 Gloucester?
Within Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Wellesley (29,906 residents, $250,000+ income); Melrose (29,488 residents, $126,854 income); North Attleborough (30,842 residents, $109,426 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Crofton, MD (29,878 residents); Hazleton, PA (29,886 residents); Algonquin, IL (29,904 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Gloucester?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.9%, 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. 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.
Household income
$87,898
Home value
$587,800
Value / income
6.7×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Gloucester 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 +881 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +3.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 79 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+3.0%
2025 estimate
30,627
2020 estimate
29,746
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 5.9% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
105.8 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, Massachusetts average
C-
City profile score · Gloucester, MA
51/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share B
38.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B-
$87,898
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C+
5.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
278 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger 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.
Gloucester profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 73/100 (B) · 38.8%
Household income: 67/100 (B-) · $87,898
Poverty rate: 60/100 (C+) · 5.9%
Violent crime: 36/100 (F) · 278 /100k
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Where Gloucester sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Gloucester'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 - Gloucester highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Gloucester, MA (this city): home $587,800, crime 830/100k
Hazleton, PA : home $129,000, crime 725/100k
Algonquin, IL : home $324,000, crime 1,238/100k
Winter Park, FL : home $676,800, crime 2,181/100k
Greenville, TX : home $197,400, crime 1,424/100k
Wellesley, MA : home $1,513,400, crime 532/100k
Melrose, MA : home $796,100, crime 531/100k
Bridgewater, MA : home $500,600, crime 275/100k
Northampton, MA : home $398,000, crime 1,717/100k
West Springfield, MA : home $307,900, crime 3,589/100k
How does Gloucester compare to other US cities?
Here's how Gloucester stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income69% higher than other cities
Home value89% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety71% 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: Gloucester ranks #63 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 Gloucester 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 Gloucester near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Gloucester ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Gloucester only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#142 of 233
39th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#90 of 240
63rd percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#80 of 247
68th percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#159 of 247
36th 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
69th percentile nationally for median household income · 71st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Gloucester's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Gloucester'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 Gloucester's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$587,80011th percentilemore affordable than 11% 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
Gloucester's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,519 of 15,516
More affordable than 6% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,071 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.7×, Gloucester sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,519 of 15,516 and #3,071 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$87,898Gloucester, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Gloucester, 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 Gloucester, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)38.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)59.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
29,862
Median Income
$87,898
Median Home Value
$587,800
Median Age
51.0
Poverty Rate
5.9%
Labor force participation
59.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
38.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
830.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
277.8
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
552.3
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.
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Gloucester's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
29,746 residents
2021
29,985 residents
2022
29,967 residents
2023
30,203 residents
2024
30,544 residents
2025
30,627 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Growing
Total Permits (2024)
79
housing units authorized
Single-Family
19
detached homes
Multifamily
60
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
72
26
46
$29.6M
2020
258
24
234
$47.5M
2021
46
23
23
$27.8M
2022
55
23
32
$38.2M
2023
81
16
65
$35.0M
2024
79
19
60
$38.0M
Permit volume increased 10% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
74.1%
Carpool
6.6%
Public Transit
2.5%
Walk
4.8%
Work from Home
10.7%
Other
1.3%
Based on 15,003 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 Gloucester. 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 Gloucester 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 Gloucester sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Gloucester 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.