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Place dossier plate
SheetMI-CARO-MI · Caro, MI 4,284 pop · income 9th pct · 14 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 Caro
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Caro on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Haleyville · lowest
40,538
Haleyville · lowest
40,538 median HH income
20.2% of the leader · rank #1
Sylva · near
41,926
Sylva · near
41,926 median HH income
20.9% of the leader · rank #2
Hooppole · near
41,927
Hooppole · near
41,927 median HH income
20.9% of the leader · rank #3
Caro · this city
41,940
Caro · this city
41,940 median HH income
20.9% of the leader · rank #4
Cedaredge · near
41,944
Cedaredge · near
41,944 median HH income
20.9% of the leader · rank #5
Pomona Park · near
41,953
Pomona Park · near
41,953 median HH income
20.9% of the leader · rank #6
Bloomfield Hi… · highest
200,318
Bloomfield Hi… · highest
200,318 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 Caro 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: 4,284.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Caro - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Caro lands in the 9th percentile for household income and the 26th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
9th
percentile, household income
10th
percentile, home value
32nd
percentile, median rent
26th
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: Caro, MI
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 4,284 residents in Caro, a small town within Michigan. Households in Caro report a median income of $41,940 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 18.6%. Home values in Caro run a median of $102,200, and the median resident age is 40.6 years. Educational attainment runs 15.7% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 43.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 2279.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, near the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Michigan run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Michigan scores 96.2 (Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,113 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $238 across Michigan, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.6 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Caro'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 housing and income to within-city variation to population change to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Caro, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Caro?
The NCES join finds 7 public schools within the city match. 15.7% 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 Caro?
Within Michigan, the closest population matches are Gaylord (4,307 residents, $44,052 income); Sparta (4,260 residents, $55,474 income); Buchanan (4,259 residents, $54,068 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Haleyville, AL (4,283 residents); Bagdad, FL (4,285 residents); Westville, NJ (4,285 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.
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 2279.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 0% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
PlainCities matches 14 Census tracts to this city.
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 Caro?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 18.6%, 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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
Household income
$41,940
Home value
$102,200
Value / income
2.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -59 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.4% 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.
Period change
-1.4%
2025 estimate
4,258
2020 estimate
4,317
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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 77.9%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.0%
Work from home
3.4%
Drive alone
77.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,432 workers age 16+.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 18.6% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
96.2 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Michigan average
F
City profile score · Caro, MI
22/100
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.
Cost of living C
96.2 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
15.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
18.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$41,940
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
635 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Caro profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 57/100 (C) · 96.2 index
Bachelor's+ share: 22/100 (F) · 15.7%
Poverty rate: 16/100 (F) · 18.6%
Household income: 9/100 (F) · $41,940
Violent crime: 8/100 (F) · 635 /100k
Where Caro sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Caro'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 - Caro highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Caro, MI (this city): home $102,200, crime 2,280/100k
Haleyville, AL : home $96,300, crime 3,850/100k
Tarentum, PA : home $76,200, crime 1,273/100k
Gaylord, MI : home $170,300, crime 3,885/100k
Sparta, MI : home $190,100, crime 958/100k
Buchanan, MI : home $138,400, crime 1,901/100k
Bloomfield Hills, MI : home $942,900, crime 712/100k
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 Caro compare to other US cities?
Caro measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income9% higher than other cities
Home value10% pricier than other cities
Median rent32% pricier than other cities
Safety26% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Michigan and the picture shifts: Caro ranks #196 of 254 Michigan cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Caro against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Michigan only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Michigan-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Caro near the bottom of Michigan's cities
Among the 727 Michigan cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Caro ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Caro only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#637 of 718
11th percentile in Michigan
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 727
0th percentile in Michigan
Median Home Value
#568 of 721
21st percentile in Michigan
Poverty Rate
#88 of 727
88th percentile in Michigan
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#457 of 727
37th percentile in Michigan
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 Michigan only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
9th percentile nationally for median household income · 26th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Caro's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Caro'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 Caro's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$102,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 90% 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
Caro's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#3,686 of 15,516
More affordable than 76% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,347 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.4×, Caro sits in the affordable band:
national rank #3,686 of 15,516 and #3,347 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$41,940Caro, MI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Caro, MI median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Caro, MI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)15.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)18.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)43.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,284
Median Income
$41,940
Median Home Value
$102,200
Median Age
40.6
Poverty Rate
18.6%
Labor force participation
43.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
15.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2279.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
634.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1645.1
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
7
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Caro's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,317 residents
2021
4,296 residents
2022
4,282 residents
2023
4,276 residents
2024
4,270 residents
2025
4,258 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
77.9%
Carpool
9.4%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
7.7%
Work from Home
3.4%
Other
1.6%
Based on 1,432 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Michigan statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $238
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Michigan at $238 (electricity about $105 , water and sewer about $48 ).
These are Michigan statewide averages, not a meter reading for Caro. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Michigan's BEA cost-of-living index is 96.2 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Caro is $1,113/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Michigan statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.6 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Michigan statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Caro sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Caro compares to similar-size Michigan 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.