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Place dossier plate
SheetMA-ORANGE-MA · Orange, MA 3,793 pop · income 24th 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 Orange
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Orange on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Oneida · lowest
43,506
Oneida · lowest
43,506 median HH income
24.5% of the leader · rank #1
Schoharie · near
53,008
Schoharie · near
53,008 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #2
Jenera · near
53,009
Jenera · near
53,009 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #3
Orange · this city
53,014
Orange · this city
53,014 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #4
Naches · near
53,015
Naches · near
53,015 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #5
Ortonville · near
53,021
Ortonville · near
53,021 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #6
North Pembroke · highest
177,703
North Pembroke · highest
177,703 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 Orange 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: 3,793.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Orange - the verdict
Orange ranks in the 24th percentile for household income and the 54th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
24th
percentile, household income
48th
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
54th
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: Orange, MA
3,793 people live in Orange, Massachusetts - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Orange brings in $53,014 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 14.9%. Orange's housing stock carries a median value of $217,200, and the median resident age is 40.1 years. About 14.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 49.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Orange reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1244.0 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 48.3°F with 42.2 inches of precipitation per year.
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. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $2,261 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Massachusetts run around $330, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. 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 Orange'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 reported crime to climate and hazard context to housing and income to comparison shortlist to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Orange, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, annual population history; 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 Orange?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 76.8%. 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Orange?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1244.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 45% 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.
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 48.3°F, with 42.2 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Massachusetts is 78.8 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Orange?
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 Forestdale (3,716 residents, $105,368 income); East Dennis (3,685 residents, $100,504 income); North Pembroke (3,924 residents, $177,703 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Bishop, CA (3,793 residents); Umatilla, FL (3,793 residents); Harlem, GA (3,793 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Orange?
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 4.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 14.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.1×
Home value
$217,200
Household income
$53,014
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 3 public schools within the city match. 14.0% 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
14.9%
Bachelor's degree+
14.0%
Matched public schools
3
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
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 F
318 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$53,014
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
14.9%
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
14.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Orange profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 30/100 (F) · 318 /100k
Household income: 24/100 (F) · $53,014
Poverty rate: 23/100 (F) · 14.9%
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Bachelor's+ share: 17/100 (F) · 14.0%
Where Orange sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Orange'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 - Orange highlighted among 24 peers.Read the chart values
Orange, MA (this city): home $217,200, crime 1,244/100k
Bishop, CA : home $405,700, crime 3,311/100k
Oneida, TN : home $164,000, crime 1,753/100k
Dwight, IL : home $143,200, crime 743/100k
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 Orange compare to other US cities?
Orange measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income24% higher than other cities
Home value48% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety54% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Massachusetts, Orange ranks #101 of 149 Massachusetts cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Orange 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 Orange near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Orange ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Orange only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#225 of 233
3rd percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#236 of 240
2nd percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#17 of 247
93rd percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#243 of 247
2nd 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
24th percentile nationally for median household income · 54th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Orange's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Orange'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 Orange's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$217,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 52% 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
Orange's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,968 of 15,516
More affordable than 29% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8,529 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 4.1×, Orange sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,968 of 15,516 and #8,529 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$53,014Orange, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Orange, 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 Orange, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)14.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)14.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)49.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
3,793
Median Income
$53,014
Median Home Value
$217,200
Median Age
40.1
Poverty Rate
14.9%
Labor force participation
49.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
14.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1244.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
317.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
926.4
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
48.3°F
Annual Precipitation
42.2"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
76.8%
Carpool
14.3%
Public Transit
1.2%
Walk
0.9%
Work from Home
5.8%
Other
1.0%
Based on 1,524 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 Orange. 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 Orange 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 Orange sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Orange 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, NOAA Climate Normals, 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.