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Place dossier plate
SheetME-BRUNSWICK-ME · Brunswick, ME 16,928 pop · income 47th pct · 9 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 Brunswick
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Brunswick on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Waterville · lowest
47,489
Waterville · lowest
47,489 median HH income
37.7% of the leader · rank #1
Sabillasville · near
68,182
Sabillasville · near
68,182 median HH income
54.1% of the leader · rank #2
Pojoaque · near
68,188
Pojoaque · near
68,188 median HH income
54.1% of the leader · rank #3
Brunswick · this city
68,190
Brunswick · this city
68,190 median HH income
54.1% of the leader · rank #4
Lake Holiday… · near
68,191
Lake Holiday… · near
68,191 median HH income
54.1% of the leader · rank #5
Pleasanton · near
68,194
Pleasanton · near
68,194 median HH income
54.1% of the leader · rank #6
Truckee · highest
125,995
Truckee · highest
125,995 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 Brunswick 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: 16,928.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Brunswick - the verdict
Brunswick ranks in the 47th percentile for household income and the 54th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
47th
percentile, household income
70th
percentile, home value
69th
percentile, median rent
54th
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: Brunswick, ME
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 16,928 residents in Brunswick, a small town within Maine. The typical household in Brunswick brings in $68,190 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.2%. Home values in Brunswick run a median of $333,500, and the median resident age is 38.3 years. Educational attainment runs 49.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 58.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Brunswick reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1262.0 in FBI UCR data, below 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 45.7°F with 50.0 inches of precipitation per year and 66.8 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). FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 56.7 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Brunswick'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 schools and households to comparison shortlist to reported crime to climate and hazard context to housing and income to within-city variation to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Brunswick, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles.
No matched row is reported here for annual population history, local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Brunswick?
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 4 public schools within the city match. 49.6% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Brunswick?
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 Maine, the closest population matches are Waterville (16,704 residents, $47,489 income); Augusta (18,999 residents, $48,756 income); Westbrook (20,484 residents, $85,868 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Ashwaubenon, WI (16,931 residents); Millbrook, AL (16,923 residents); Manassas Park, VA (16,923 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Brunswick?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1262.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 45% 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.
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.
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 Brunswick?
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 45.7°F, with 50.0 inches of precipitation and 66.8 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
56.7
Annual precipitation
50.0 in
Mean temperature
45.7°F
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 Brunswick?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.9×
Home value
$333,500
Household income
$68,190
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Brunswick?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 58.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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
58.8%
Work from home
17.1%
Public transit
0.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 8,369 workers age 16+.
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-
49.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime B+
71 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B+
3.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
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
$68,190
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Brunswick profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 83/100 (A-) · 49.6%
Violent crime: 78/100 (B+) · 71 /100k
Poverty rate: 77/100 (B+) · 3.2%
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Household income: 47/100 (D) · $68,190
Where Brunswick sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Brunswick'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 - Brunswick highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Brunswick, ME (this city): home $333,500, crime 1,262/100k
Ashwaubenon, WI : home $245,100, crime 2,448/100k
Millbrook, AL : home $193,600, crime 3,681/100k
Manassas Park, VA : home $381,200, crime 844/100k
Manor, TX : home $333,800, crime 1,718/100k
Truckee, CA : home $884,000, crime 1,022/100k
Washougal, WA : home $492,100, crime 1,315/100k
Waterville, ME : home $173,700, crime 3,166/100k
Augusta, ME : home $188,900, crime 4,342/100k
Westbrook, ME : home $341,800, crime 1,330/100k
Saco, ME : home $370,300, crime 1,159/100k
Sanford, ME : home $257,200, crime 2,784/100k
Biddeford, ME : home $349,300, crime 2,663/100k
How does Brunswick compare to other US cities?
Here's how Brunswick stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income47% higher than other cities
Home value70% pricier than other cities
Median rent69% pricier than other cities
Safety54% 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 Maine, Brunswick ranks #48 of 73 Maine 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 Brunswick 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 Brunswick near the bottom of Maine's cities
Among the 154 Maine cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Brunswick ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Brunswick only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#48 of 145
67th percentile in Maine
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 154
0th percentile in Maine
Median Home Value
#40 of 151
74th percentile in Maine
Poverty Rate
#114 of 154
25th percentile in Maine
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#23 of 154
84th 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
47th percentile nationally for median household income · 54th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Brunswick's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Brunswick'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 Brunswick's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$333,50030th percentilemore affordable than 30% 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
Brunswick's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#12,708 of 15,516
More affordable than 18% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,555 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.9×, Brunswick sits in the moderate band:
national rank #12,708 of 15,516 and #2,555 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
$68,190Brunswick, ME median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Brunswick, 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 Brunswick, ME.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)49.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
16,928
Median Income
$68,190
Median Home Value
$333,500
Median Age
38.3
Poverty Rate
3.2%
Labor force participation
58.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
49.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1262.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
70.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1191.4
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
45.7°F
Annual Precipitation
50.0"
Annual Snowfall
66.8"
Schools
Total Schools
4
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
58.8%
Carpool
8.1%
Public Transit
0.5%
Walk
12.2%
Work from Home
17.1%
Other
3.3%
Based on 8,369 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 Brunswick. 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 Brunswick 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 Brunswick sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Brunswick 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.