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Place dossier plate
SheetMI-MILFORD-MI · Milford, MI 6,467 pop · income 79th 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 Milford
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Milford on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Sweetwater · lowest
44,661
Sweetwater · lowest
44,661 median HH income
23.7% of the leader · rank #1
Westwood · near
102,500
Westwood · near
102,500 median HH income
54.5% of the leader · rank #2
Bancroft · near
102,500
Bancroft · near
102,500 median HH income
54.5% of the leader · rank #3
Milford · this city
102,521
Milford · this city
102,521 median HH income
54.5% of the leader · rank #4
Kearney · near
102,523
Kearney · near
102,523 median HH income
54.5% of the leader · rank #5
Oyster Bay · near
102,540
Oyster Bay · near
102,540 median HH income
54.5% of the leader · rank #6
Huntington Wo… · highest
188,229
Huntington Wo… · highest
188,229 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 Milford 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: 6,467.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Milford - the verdict
Milford ranks in the 79th percentile for household income and the 92nd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
79th
percentile, household income
72nd
percentile, home value
32nd
percentile, median rent
92nd
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: Milford, MI
Michigan's Milford is a small town, with 6,467 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Milford households earn a median of $102,521 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 7.4%. Home values in Milford run a median of $348,600, and the median resident age is 42.1 years. 49.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 61.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 8 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Slowing), down 11% from five years earlier. Milford reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 329.9 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Michigan run below the national norm: the state registers 96.2 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,113 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Michigan's average monthly utility costs around $238 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 49.6 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Milford'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 reported crime to schools and households to population change to housing and income to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Milford, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates.
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
Which cities make useful reference points for Milford?
Within Michigan, the closest population matches are New Haven (6,341 residents, $68,203 income); Huntington Woods (6,322 residents, $188,229 income); Manistee (6,275 residents, $59,315 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Taos, NM (6,468 residents); East Flat Rock, NC (6,468 residents); Powell, WY (6,466 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Milford?
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 329.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 86% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 49.2% 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.
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 +16 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 8 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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 Milford?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.4%, 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. 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
$102,521
Home value
$348,600
Value / income
3.4×
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 Milford?
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 76.0%. 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
18.0%
Drive alone
76.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 3,073 workers age 16+.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Michigan average
B
City profile score · Milford, MI
70/100
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 A
47 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A-
49.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B+
$102,521
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
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.
Poverty rate C-
7.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Milford profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 85/100 (A) · 47 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 83/100 (A-) · 49.2%
Household income: 78/100 (B+) · $102,521
Cost of living: 57/100 (C) · 96.2 index
Poverty rate: 50/100 (C-) · 7.4%
Where Milford sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Milford'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 - Milford highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Milford, MI (this city): home $348,600, crime 330/100k
Taos, NM : home $432,700, crime 6,915/100k
Powell, WY : home $265,400, crime 1,459/100k
Sweetwater, TN : home $166,000, crime 1,717/100k
Huntington Woods, MI : home $470,600, crime 337/100k
Manistee, MI : home $144,400, crime 1,624/100k
Ishpeming, MI : home $109,200, crime 1,082/100k
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 Milford compare to other US cities?
Where Milford sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income79% higher than other cities
Home value72% pricier than other cities
Median rent32% pricier than other cities
Safety92% 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 Michigan, Milford ranks #14 of 254 Michigan 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 Milford 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 Milford near the bottom of Michigan's cities
Among the 727 Michigan cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Milford ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Milford only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#57 of 718
92nd percentile in Michigan
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 727
0th percentile in Michigan
Median Home Value
#52 of 721
93rd percentile in Michigan
Poverty Rate
#387 of 727
46th percentile in Michigan
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#68 of 727
91st 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
79th percentile nationally for median household income · 92nd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Milford's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Milford'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 Milford's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$348,60028th percentilemore affordable than 28% 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
Milford's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,577 of 15,516
More affordable than 45% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#6,964 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.4×, Milford sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,577 of 15,516 and #6,964 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
$102,521Milford, MI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Milford, 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 Milford, MI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)49.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
6,467
Median Income
$102,521
Median Home Value
$348,600
Median Age
42.1
Poverty Rate
7.4%
Labor force participation
61.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
49.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
329.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
47.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
282.8
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
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Milford's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
6,504 residents
2021
6,479 residents
2022
6,438 residents
2023
6,419 residents
2024
6,507 residents
2025
6,520 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Slowing
Total Permits (2024)
8
housing units authorized
Single-Family
8
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
9
9
0
$1.8M
2020
6
6
0
$0.9M
2021
2
2
0
$0.4M
2022
3
3
0
$0.7M
2023
27
9
18
$5.2M
2024
8
8
0
$1.7M
Permit volume decreased 11% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
76.0%
Carpool
5.6%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
18.0%
Based on 3,073 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 Milford. 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 Milford 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 Milford sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Milford 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 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.