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
SheetMA-WILBRAHAM-MA · Wilbraham, MA 4,247 pop · income 70th 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 Wilbraham
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Wilbraham on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hatillo zona… · lowest
21,182
Hatillo zona… · lowest
21,182 median HH income
17.5% of the leader · rank #1
Wilbraham · this city
88,409
Wilbraham · this city
88,409 median HH income
73.1% of the leader · rank #2
Wheeler AFB · near
88,409
Wheeler AFB · near
88,409 median HH income
73.1% of the leader · rank #3
Whiteland · near
88,411
Whiteland · near
88,411 median HH income
73.1% of the leader · rank #4
Shenandoah He… · near
88,417
Shenandoah He… · near
88,417 median HH income
73.1% of the leader · rank #5
New Castle · near
88,421
New Castle · near
88,421 median HH income
73.1% of the leader · rank #6
Harbison Cany… · highest
121,007
Harbison Cany… · highest
121,007 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 Wilbraham 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: 4,247.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Wilbraham - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Wilbraham lands in the 70th percentile for household income and the 48th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
70th
percentile, household income
73rd
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
48th
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: Wilbraham, MA
4,247 people live in Wilbraham, Massachusetts - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Wilbraham brings in $88,409 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.4%. Typical homes in Wilbraham are valued around $361,600, and the median resident age is 53.8 years. About 45.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 52.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Wilbraham reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1439.4 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects 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. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,261 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Massachusetts run around $330, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 78.8 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Wilbraham'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 comparison shortlist to schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Wilbraham, 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, annual population history, local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Wilbraham?
Within Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Westborough (4,234 residents, $100,037 income); Northwest Harwich (4,205 residents, $89,063 income); Williamstown (4,352 residents, $82,917 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hatillo zona urbana, PR (4,247 residents); Shelbyville, IL (4,248 residents); West Peoria, IL (4,246 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.
What does the education layer cover for Wilbraham?
The NCES join finds 5 public schools within the city match. 45.7% 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 Wilbraham?
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 82.1%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
How far does income reach against housing in Wilbraham?
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 3.4%, 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.
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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Wilbraham?
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 1439.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 37% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1277.2
Violent rate
162.2
Total reported rate
1439.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 A-
45.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate B+
3.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income B-
$88,409
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime C
162 /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.
Wilbraham profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 80/100 (A-) · 45.7%
Poverty rate: 76/100 (B+) · 3.4%
Household income: 68/100 (B-) · $88,409
Violent crime: 55/100 (C) · 162 /100k
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Where Wilbraham sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Wilbraham'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 - Wilbraham highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Wilbraham, MA (this city): home $361,600, crime 1,439/100k
Shelbyville, IL : home $111,200, crime 287/100k
Larksville, PA : home $145,700, crime 235/100k
Hometown, IL : home $152,000, crime 1,742/100k
Westborough, MA : home $540,600, crime 1,027/100k
Williamstown, MA : home $436,900, crime 967/100k
Hopedale, MA : home $399,100, crime 309/100k
Winchendon, MA : home $258,300, crime 806/100k
How does Wilbraham compare to other US cities?
Here's how Wilbraham stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income70% higher than other cities
Home value73% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety48% 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: Wilbraham ranks #113 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 Wilbraham 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 Wilbraham near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Wilbraham ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Wilbraham only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#141 of 233
39th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#186 of 240
23rd percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#127 of 247
48th percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#121 of 247
51st 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
70th percentile nationally for median household income · 48th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Wilbraham's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Wilbraham'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 Wilbraham's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$361,60027th percentilemore affordable than 27% 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
Wilbraham'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
#10,947 of 15,516
More affordable than 29% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8,521 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 4.1×, Wilbraham sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,947 of 15,516 and #8,521 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
$88,409Wilbraham, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Wilbraham, 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 Wilbraham, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)45.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)52.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,247
Median Income
$88,409
Median Home Value
$361,600
Median Age
53.8
Poverty Rate
3.4%
Labor force participation
52.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
45.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1439.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
162.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1277.2
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
5
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
82.1%
Carpool
5.3%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
5.4%
Work from Home
7.1%
Based on 1,817 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 Wilbraham. 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 Wilbraham 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 Wilbraham sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Wilbraham 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.