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Place dossier plate
SheetMD-POOLESVILLE-MD · Poolesville, MD 5,704 pop · income 99th 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 Poolesville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Poolesville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
McKenzie · lowest
35,988
McKenzie · lowest
35,988 median HH income
15.0% of the leader · rank #1
Heath · near
216,160
Heath · near
216,160 median HH income
90.0% of the leader · rank #2
Parker · near
216,179
Parker · near
216,179 median HH income
90.0% of the leader · rank #3
North Barring… · near
216,250
North Barring… · near
216,250 median HH income
90.0% of the leader · rank #4
Poolesville · this city
216,653
Poolesville · this city
216,653 median HH income
90.2% of the leader · rank #5
Ridgewood · near
217,250
Ridgewood · near
217,250 median HH income
90.4% of the leader · rank #6
Fulton · highest
240,219
Fulton · highest
240,219 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
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Poolesville on ACS population and median household income
. 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: 5,704.
Nationally, Poolesville sits in the 99th percentile for household income among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS.
99th
percentile, household income
92nd
percentile, home value
84th
percentile, median rent
📝 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: Poolesville, MD
5,704 people live in Poolesville, Maryland - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $216,653 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.8%. Typical homes in Poolesville are valued around $672,300, and the median resident age is 44.5 years. Educational attainment runs 67.8% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 61.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The city is served by 3 public schools according to NCES Common Core of Data.
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. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 60.2 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Poolesville'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 population change to schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Poolesville, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Poolesville?
Within Maryland, the closest population matches are Fruitland (5,698 residents, $64,352 income); Spring Ridge (5,720 residents, $143,079 income); Abingdon (5,727 residents, $147,652 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Dayton, KY (5,703 residents); Glencoe, MN (5,702 residents); McKenzie, TN (5,706 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.
Is Poolesville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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 +160 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +2.8% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What does the education layer cover for Poolesville?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 67.8% 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.
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 Poolesville?
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 55.1%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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 Poolesville?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.8%, 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. 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.
Household income
$216,653
Home value
$672,300
Value / income
3.1×
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.
Household income A+
$216,653
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
67.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better 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.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Poolesville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 100/100 (A+) · $216,653
Bachelor's+ share: 96/100 (A+) · 67.8%
Poverty rate: 80/100 (A-) · 2.8%
Cost of living: 21/100 (F) · 105.0 index
How does Poolesville compare to other US cities?
Where Poolesville sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income99% higher than other cities
Home value92% pricier than other cities
Median rent84% pricier than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Poolesville 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 Poolesville near the bottom of Maryland's cities
Among the 479 Maryland cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Poolesville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Poolesville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#20 of 445
96th percentile in Maryland
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 479
0th percentile in Maryland
Median Home Value
#37 of 450
92nd percentile in Maryland
Poverty Rate
#276 of 479
42nd percentile in Maryland
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#38 of 479
92nd 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
99th percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Poolesville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$672,3008th percentilemore affordable than 8% 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
Poolesville's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,202 of 15,516
More affordable than 54% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#6,007 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.1×, Poolesville sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,202 of 15,516 and #6,007 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
$216,653Poolesville, MD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Poolesville, 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 Poolesville, MD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)67.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
5,704
Median Income
$216,653
Median Home Value
$672,300
Median Age
44.5
Poverty Rate
2.8%
Labor force participation
61.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
67.8%
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Poolesville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
5,782 residents
2021
5,832 residents
2022
5,936 residents
2023
5,959 residents
2024
5,975 residents
2025
5,942 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
55.1%
Carpool
4.2%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
1.4%
Work from Home
37.6%
Other
1.2%
Based on 2,849 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 Poolesville. 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 Poolesville 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 Poolesville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Poolesville 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, 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.