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Place dossier plate
SheetME-BATH-ME · Bath, ME 8,801 pop · income 44th 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 Bath
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Bath on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Highland Park · lowest
27,582
Highland Park · lowest
27,582 median HH income
20.6% of the leader · rank #1
Bath · this city
65,565
Bath · this city
65,565 median HH income
49.0% of the leader · rank #2
Fountainebleau · near
65,568
Fountainebleau · near
65,568 median HH income
49.0% of the leader · rank #3
Jamestown · near
65,568
Jamestown · near
65,568 median HH income
49.0% of the leader · rank #4
Kountze · near
65,568
Kountze · near
65,568 median HH income
49.0% of the leader · rank #5
Ranchester · near
65,568
Ranchester · near
65,568 median HH income
49.0% of the leader · rank #6
Valley Cottage · highest
133,828
Valley Cottage · highest
133,828 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 Bath 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: 8,801.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Bath - the verdict
Bath ranks in the 44th percentile for household income and the 73rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
44th
percentile, household income
62nd
percentile, home value
69th
percentile, median rent
73rd
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: Bath, ME
Bath is a small town in Maine, home to 8,801 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Bath report a median income of $65,565 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.4%. Typical homes in Bath are valued around $285,400, and the median resident age is 46.4 years. About 39.6% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 59.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 25 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 733% from five years earlier. Bath reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 789.1 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Bath's yearly average temperature at 44.6°F with 48.5 inches of precipitation per year and 71.8 inches of snowfall.
Maine tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Maine scores 97.1 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,448 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Maine's average monthly utility costs around $273 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 56.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Bath'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 schools and households to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context 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 Bath, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, annual population history.
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 Bath?
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 67.0%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +63 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 25 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The NCES join finds 4 public schools within the city match. 39.6% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Bath?
Within Maine, the closest population matches are Presque Isle (8,736 residents, $57,396 income); Ellsworth (8,550 residents, $70,990 income); Old Orchard Beach (9,150 residents, $65,842 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Boonton, NJ (8,803 residents); Valley Cottage, NY (8,803 residents); Brownfield, TX (8,803 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.
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.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Bath?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 44.6°F, with 48.5 inches of precipitation and 71.8 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Maine is 56.7 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.
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.
Mean temperature
44.6°F
Annual precipitation
48.5 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
56.7
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
How far does income reach against housing in Bath?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.4%, 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.
Household income
$65,565
Home value
$285,400
Value / income
4.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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 789.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 65% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
721.5
Violent rate
67.6
Total reported rate
789.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 9.4% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Maine average
C
City profile score · Bath, ME
57/100
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.
Violent crime B+
68 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B
39.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living C-
97.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Household income D
$65,565
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bath profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 79/100 (B+) · 68 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 74/100 (B) · 39.6%
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Household income: 43/100 (D) · $65,565
Poverty rate: 42/100 (D) · 9.4%
Where Bath sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Bath'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 - Bath highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Bath, ME (this city): home $285,400, crime 789/100k
Boonton, NJ : home $475,300, crime 909/100k
Brownfield, TX : home $109,900, crime 1,692/100k
Highland Park, MI : home $75,800, crime 7,307/100k
Baxter, MN : home $298,400, crime 3,254/100k
Presque Isle, ME : home $142,400, crime 2,395/100k
Ellsworth, ME : home $214,500, crime 2,553/100k
Old Orchard Beach, ME : home $317,800, crime 1,147/100k
Brewer, ME : home $218,100, crime 1,836/100k
How does Bath compare to other US cities?
Bath measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income44% higher than other cities
Home value62% pricier than other cities
Median rent69% pricier than other cities
Safety73% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Maine and the picture shifts: Bath ranks #25 of 73 Maine cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Bath against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Maine only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Maine-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Bath near the bottom of Maine's cities
Among the 154 Maine cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Bath ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Bath only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#56 of 145
61st percentile in Maine
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 154
0th percentile in Maine
Median Home Value
#50 of 151
67th percentile in Maine
Poverty Rate
#58 of 154
62nd percentile in Maine
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#47 of 154
69th percentile in Maine
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 Maine only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
44th percentile nationally for median household income · 73rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Bath's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Bath'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 Bath's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$285,40038th percentilemore affordable than 38% 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
Bath's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#11,659 of 15,516
More affordable than 25% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8,968 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 4.4×, Bath sits in the moderate band:
national rank #11,659 of 15,516 and #8,968 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
$65,565Bath, ME median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Bath, ME median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Bath, ME.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)39.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)59.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
8,801
Median Income
$65,565
Median Home Value
$285,400
Median Age
46.4
Poverty Rate
9.4%
Labor force participation
59.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
39.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
789.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
67.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
721.5
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
44.6°F
Annual Precipitation
48.5"
Annual Snowfall
71.8"
Schools
Total Schools
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Bath's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
8,772 residents
2021
8,820 residents
2022
8,805 residents
2023
8,853 residents
2024
8,820 residents
2025
8,835 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
25
housing units authorized
Single-Family
7
detached homes
Multifamily
18
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
3
3
0
$1.0M
2020
8
6
2
$2.8M
2021
7
7
0
$2.0M
2022
53
7
46
$13.1M
2023
13
9
4
$4.1M
2024
25
7
18
$9.2M
Permit volume increased 733% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
67.0%
Carpool
9.1%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
9.9%
Work from Home
13.4%
Other
0.6%
Based on 4,456 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Maine statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $273
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Maine at $273 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $48 ).
These are Maine statewide averages, not a meter reading for Bath. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Maine's BEA cost-of-living index is 97.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Bath is $1,448/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Maine statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 56.7 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Maine statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Bath sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Bath compares to similar-size Maine 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.