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-WOBURN-MA · Woburn, MA 41,205 pop · income 82nd 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 Woburn
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Woburn on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hallandale Be… · lowest
48,518
Hallandale Be… · lowest
48,518 median HH income
27.7% of the leader · rank #1
Eddington · near
107,727
Eddington · near
107,727 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #2
Brandermill · near
107,748
Brandermill · near
107,748 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #3
Woburn · this city
107,754
Woburn · this city
107,754 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #4
Hampshire · near
107,774
Hampshire · near
107,774 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #5
Fircrest · near
107,781
Fircrest · near
107,781 median HH income
61.5% of the leader · rank #6
Rancho Palos… · highest
175,307
Rancho Palos… · highest
175,307 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 Woburn 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: 41,205.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Woburn - the verdict
Nationally, Woburn sits in the 82nd percentile for household income and the 58th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
82nd
percentile, household income
91st
percentile, home value
98th
percentile, median rent
58th
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: Woburn, MA
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 41,205 residents in Woburn, a small city within Massachusetts. Median household income here is $107,754 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.7%. Home values in Woburn run a median of $641,800, and the median resident age is 39.5 years. Educational attainment runs 47.3% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 67.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 130 residential building permits were authorized in Woburn (Growing), up 16% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Woburn reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1142.4 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: the state registers 105.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,261 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Massachusetts's average monthly utility costs around $330 (state average). The average commute for Woburn workers runs 22.0 minutes, with 68.9% driving alone and 15.1% working from home. 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 Woburn'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 population change to comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Woburn, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares, 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.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Woburn?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 68.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 22.0 minutes.
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 +3,170 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +7.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 130 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Woburn?
Within Massachusetts, the closest population matches are Marlborough (41,398 residents, $95,047 income); Fitchburg (41,633 residents, $70,659 income); Westfield (40,673 residents, $82,847 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Brighton, CO (41,196 residents); Hallandale Beach, FL (41,224 residents); Florence, AL (41,231 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.
The NCES join finds 10 public schools within the city match. 47.3% 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.
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 Woburn?
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 1142.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 50% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
927.1
Violent rate
215.4
Total reported rate
1142.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Woburn?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.7%, 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
$107,754
Home value
$641,800
Value / income
6.0×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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-
47.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A-
$107,754
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate B-
4.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
215 /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.
Woburn profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 81/100 (A-) · 47.3%
Household income: 80/100 (A-) · $107,754
Poverty rate: 67/100 (B-) · 4.7%
Violent crime: 45/100 (D) · 215 /100k
Cost of living: 18/100 (F) · 105.8 index
Where Woburn sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Woburn'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 - Woburn highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Woburn, MA (this city): home $641,800, crime 1,142/100k
Brighton, CO : home $475,100, crime 2,991/100k
Florence, AL : home $174,100, crime 2,647/100k
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA : home $1,541,400, crime 975/100k
Milton, GA : home $712,200, crime 543/100k
Marlborough, MA : home $485,400, crime 1,458/100k
Fitchburg, MA : home $295,500, crime 1,831/100k
Westfield, MA : home $295,500, crime 998/100k
Beverly, MA : home $621,900, crime 579/100k
Chelsea, MA : home $476,500, crime 2,415/100k
Pittsfield, MA : home $233,700, crime 1,751/100k
How does Woburn compare to other US cities?
Here's how Woburn stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income82% higher than other cities
Home value91% pricier than other cities
Median rent98% pricier than other cities
Safety58% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Massachusetts alone, Woburn ranks #94 of 149 Massachusetts cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Woburn 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 Woburn near the bottom of Massachusetts's cities
Among the 247 Massachusetts cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Woburn ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Woburn only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#94 of 233
60th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 247
0th percentile in Massachusetts
Median Home Value
#68 of 240
72nd percentile in Massachusetts
Poverty Rate
#99 of 247
59th percentile in Massachusetts
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#109 of 247
56th 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
82nd percentile nationally for median household income · 58th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Woburn's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Woburn'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 Woburn's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$641,8009th percentilemore affordable than 9% 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
Woburn's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,067 of 15,516
More affordable than 9% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,956 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.0×, Woburn sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,067 of 15,516 and #2,956 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
$107,754Woburn, MA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Woburn, 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 Woburn, MA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)47.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
41,205
Median Income
$107,754
Median Home Value
$641,800
Median Age
39.5
Poverty Rate
4.7%
Labor force participation
67.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
47.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1142.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
215.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
927.1
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
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Woburn's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
40,792 residents
2021
41,109 residents
2022
41,629 residents
2023
41,963 residents
2024
43,812 residents
2025
43,962 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Growing
Total Permits (2024)
130
housing units authorized
Single-Family
15
detached homes
Multifamily
115
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
112
44
68
$27.2M
2020
376
81
295
$75.1M
2021
203
24
179
$43.0M
2022
78
21
57
$23.7M
2023
632
14
618
$137.3M
2024
130
15
115
$43.3M
Permit volume increased 16% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
22.0 minutes
Drive Alone
68.9%
Carpool
9.3%
Public Transit
3.7%
Walk
1.5%
Work from Home
15.1%
Other
1.5%
Based on 22,910 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 Woburn. 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 Woburn 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 Woburn sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Woburn 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.