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Place dossier plate
SheetMD-FREDERICK-MD · Frederick, MD 80,617 pop · income 74th pct · 65 tracts
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 Frederick
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Frederick on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Homestead · lowest
61,975
Homestead · lowest
61,975 median HH income
39.3% of the leader · rank #1
Mount Ephraim · near
95,137
Mount Ephraim · near
95,137 median HH income
60.3% of the leader · rank #2
Huber Ridge · near
95,141
Huber Ridge · near
95,141 median HH income
60.3% of the leader · rank #3
Frederick · this city
95,150
Frederick · this city
95,150 median HH income
60.3% of the leader · rank #4
Kemah · near
95,152
Kemah · near
95,152 median HH income
60.3% of the leader · rank #5
Lakeville · near
95,156
Lakeville · near
95,156 median HH income
60.3% of the leader · rank #6
Ellicott · highest
157,891
Ellicott · highest
157,891 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 Frederick 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: 80,617.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Frederick - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Frederick places in the 74th percentile for household income and the 30th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
74th
percentile, household income
74th
percentile, home value
84th
percentile, median rent
30th
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: Frederick, MD
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 80,617 residents in Frederick, a small city within Maryland. The typical household in Frederick brings in $95,150 a year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.3%. Typical homes in Frederick are valued around $365,200, and the median resident age is 37.1 years. 41.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 67.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 1,143 residential building permits were authorized in Frederick (Building Boom), up 122% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 2079.7 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, near the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Maryland carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Maryland scores 105.0 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,657 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Maryland run around $255, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in Frederick report an average commute of 25.6 minutes, with 70.6% driving alone and 15.0% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 60.2 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Frederick'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 within-city variation to population change to schools and households to work and mobility to comparison shortlist 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 Frederick, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can 65 Census tracts reveal inside Frederick?
PlainCities matches 65 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
Is Frederick growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +13,663 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +17.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1,143 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
What does the education layer cover for Frederick?
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 30 public schools within the city match. 41.8% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Frederick?
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 Maryland, the closest population matches are Silver Spring (82,129 residents, $98,880 income); Waldorf (82,541 residents, $115,453 income); Ellicott (73,737 residents, $157,891 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Boynton Beach, FL (80,601 residents); Rancho Cordova, CA (80,656 residents); Somerville, MA (80,549 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Frederick?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 70.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 25.6 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. 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.
Drive alone
70.6%
Work from home
15.0%
Public transit
1.8%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 43,347 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Frederick?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2079.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 9% 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.
Total reported rate
2079.7
Violent rate
406.0
Property rate
1673.7
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Frederick?
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 7.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.8×
Home value
$365,200
Household income
$95,150
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Above median income · poverty 7.3% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
105.0 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, Maryland average
D
City profile score · Frederick, MD
49/100
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+
41.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B
$95,150
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate C-
7.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
406 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
105.0 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Frederick profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 77/100 (B+) · 41.8%
Household income: 74/100 (B) · $95,150
Poverty rate: 51/100 (C-) · 7.3%
Violent crime: 22/100 (F) · 406 /100k
Cost of living: 21/100 (F) · 105.0 index
Where Frederick sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Frederick'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 - Frederick highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Frederick, MD (this city): home $365,200, crime 2,080/100k
Boynton Beach, FL : home $312,700, crime 2,700/100k
Rancho Cordova, CA : home $451,400, crime 2,538/100k
Somerville, MA : home $899,400, crime 1,920/100k
North Port, FL : home $328,700, crime 875/100k
Lakewood, CA : home $774,100, crime 3,038/100k
Gaithersburg, MD : home $484,500, crime 1,565/100k
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 Frederick compare to other US cities?
Frederick measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income74% higher than other cities
Home value74% pricier than other cities
Median rent84% pricier than other cities
Safety30% 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 Maryland alone, Frederick ranks #35 of 70 Maryland 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 Frederick against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Maryland only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Maryland-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Frederick near the bottom of Maryland's cities
Among the 479 Maryland cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Frederick ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Frederick only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#243 of 445
45th percentile in Maryland
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 479
0th percentile in Maryland
Median Home Value
#221 of 450
51st percentile in Maryland
Poverty Rate
#134 of 479
71st percentile in Maryland
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#172 of 479
64th percentile in Maryland
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 Maryland only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
74th percentile nationally for median household income · 30th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Frederick's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Frederick'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 Frederick's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$365,20026th percentilemore affordable than 26% 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
Frederick'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
#10,195 of 15,516
More affordable than 34% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#287 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.8×, Frederick sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,195 of 15,516 and #287 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
$95,150Frederick, MD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Frederick, MD median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Frederick, MD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)41.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
80,617
Median Income
$95,150
Median Home Value
$365,200
Median Age
37.1
Poverty Rate
7.3%
Labor force participation
67.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
41.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2079.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
406.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1673.7
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
30
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Frederick's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
78,396 residents
2021
80,015 residents
2022
82,601 residents
2023
86,083 residents
2024
89,346 residents
2025
92,059 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
1,143
housing units authorized
Single-Family
769
detached homes
Multifamily
374
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
14.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
515
281
234
$86.1M
2020
530
355
175
$100.2M
2021
1,023
501
522
$166.8M
2022
1,542
692
850
$263.9M
2023
1,229
789
440
$204.5M
2024
1,143
769
374
$220.6M
Permit volume increased 122% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
25.6 minutes
Drive Alone
70.6%
Carpool
7.3%
Public Transit
1.8%
Walk
2.9%
Work from Home
15.0%
Other
2.4%
Based on 43,347 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Maryland statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $255
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Maryland at $255 (electricity about $120 , water and sewer about $55 ).
These are Maryland statewide averages, not a meter reading for Frederick. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Maryland's BEA cost-of-living index is 105.0 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Frederick is $1,657/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Maryland statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 60.2 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Maryland statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Frederick sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Frederick compares to similar-size Maryland 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.