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Place dossier plate
SheetMD-LAUREL-MD · Laurel, MD 29,594 pop · income 74th 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 Laurel
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Laurel on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Anderson · lowest
44,321
Anderson · lowest
44,321 median HH income
24.8% of the leader · rank #1
Poncha Springs · near
94,028
Poncha Springs · near
94,028 median HH income
52.6% of the leader · rank #2
North Redingt… · near
94,044
North Redingt… · near
94,044 median HH income
52.6% of the leader · rank #3
Naples · near
94,048
Naples · near
94,048 median HH income
52.6% of the leader · rank #4
Laurel · this city
94,063
Laurel · this city
94,063 median HH income
52.7% of the leader · rank #5
Jericho · near
94,063
Jericho · near
94,063 median HH income
52.7% of the leader · rank #6
Clarksburg · highest
178,641
Clarksburg · highest
178,641 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 Laurel 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: 29,594.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Laurel - the verdict
Laurel ranks in the 74th percentile for household income and the 3rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
74th
percentile, household income
74th
percentile, home value
84th
percentile, median rent
3rd
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: Laurel, MD
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 29,594 residents in Laurel, a small city within Maryland. Median household income here is $94,063 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.3%. Typical homes in Laurel are valued around $367,300, and the median resident age is 36.6 years. About 44.5% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 72.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 32 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Slowing), down 20% from five years earlier. Laurel's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 5255.2 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 57.1°F with 47.5 inches of precipitation per year.
Maryland carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Maryland at 105.0 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,657 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $255 across Maryland, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Workers in Laurel report an average commute of 27.6 minutes, with 68.3% driving alone and 14.3% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 60.2 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Laurel'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 climate and hazard context to comparison shortlist to schools and households to housing and income to population change to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Laurel, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history, 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.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Laurel?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 68.3%. The reported mean trip to work is 27.6 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. 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.
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 57.1°F, with 47.5 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Maryland is 60.2 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 Laurel?
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 Crofton (29,878 residents, $147,250 income); Clarksburg (29,246 residents, $178,641 income); Perry Hall (28,908 residents, $104,709 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Raytown, MO (29,593 residents); Central, LA (29,603 residents); Anderson, SC (29,563 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.
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 19 public schools within the city match. 44.5% 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.
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 Laurel?
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 3.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.9×
Home value
$367,300
Household income
$94,063
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +277 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 32 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
2020 estimate
29,977
2025 estimate
30,254
Period change
+0.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Laurel?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 5255.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 130% higher 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
5255.2
Violent rate
393.7
Property rate
4861.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 · Laurel, 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+
44.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B
$94,063
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
394 /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.
Laurel profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 79/100 (B+) · 44.5%
Household income: 73/100 (B) · $94,063
Poverty rate: 51/100 (C-) · 7.3%
Violent crime: 23/100 (F) · 394 /100k
Cost of living: 21/100 (F) · 105.0 index
Where Laurel sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Laurel'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 - Laurel highlighted among 26 peers.Read the chart values
Laurel, MD (this city): home $367,300, crime 5,255/100k
Raytown, MO : home $162,000, crime 4,602/100k
Anderson, SC : home $199,600, crime 6,265/100k
Schererville, IN : home $294,600, crime 1,389/100k
Southgate, MI : home $165,400, crime 2,463/100k
Hobart, IN : home $203,400, crime 2,423/100k
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 Laurel compare to other US cities?
Where Laurel sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income74% higher than other cities
Home value74% pricier than other cities
Median rent84% pricier than other cities
Safety3% 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 Maryland, Laurel ranks #64 of 70 Maryland 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 Laurel 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 Laurel near the bottom of Maryland's cities
Among the 479 Maryland cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Laurel ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Laurel only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#247 of 445
44th percentile in Maryland
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 479
0th percentile in Maryland
Median Home Value
#217 of 450
52nd percentile in Maryland
Poverty Rate
#134 of 479
71st percentile in Maryland
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#146 of 479
70th 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 · 3rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Laurel's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Laurel'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 Laurel's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$367,30026th 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
Laurel's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,409 of 15,516
More affordable than 33% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,898 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.9×, Laurel sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,409 of 15,516 and #1,898 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$94,063Laurel, MD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Laurel, 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 Laurel, MD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)44.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)72.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
29,594
Median Income
$94,063
Median Home Value
$367,300
Median Age
36.6
Poverty Rate
7.3%
Labor force participation
72.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
44.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
5255.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
393.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
4861.5
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
57.1°F
Annual Precipitation
47.5"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
19
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Laurel's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
29,977 residents
2021
29,553 residents
2022
29,500 residents
2023
29,607 residents
2024
30,133 residents
2025
30,254 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
32
housing units authorized
Single-Family
32
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
40
30
10
$11.6M
2020
27
22
5
$7.3M
2021
125
11
114
$35.8M
2022
222
165
57
$67.0M
2023
208
208
0
$56.3M
2024
32
32
0
$17.7M
Permit volume decreased 20% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
27.6 minutes
Drive Alone
68.3%
Carpool
9.6%
Public Transit
2.6%
Walk
1.8%
Work from Home
14.3%
Other
3.4%
Based on 16,951 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 Laurel. 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 Laurel 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 Laurel sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Laurel 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, NOAA Climate Normals, 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.