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Place dossier plate
SheetMN-NEW-ULM-MN · New Ulm, MN 14,066 pop · income 41st pct · 7 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 New Ulm
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest New Ulm on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Fergus Falls · lowest
50,865
Fergus Falls · lowest
50,865 median HH income
24.4% of the leader · rank #1
West Point · near
63,977
West Point · near
63,977 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #2
Wood · near
63,977
Wood · near
63,977 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #3
Perry · near
63,983
Perry · near
63,983 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #4
New Ulm · this city
63,984
New Ulm · this city
63,984 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #5
San Bernardino · near
63,988
San Bernardino · near
63,988 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #6
Mill Valley · highest
208,466
Mill Valley · highest
208,466 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 New Ulm 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: 14,066.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
New Ulm - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, New Ulm lands in the 41st percentile for household income and the 60th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
41st
percentile, household income
41st
percentile, home value
36th
percentile, median rent
60th
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: New Ulm, MN
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 14,066 residents in New Ulm, a small town within Minnesota. New Ulm households earn a median of $63,984 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 5.3%. Typical homes in New Ulm are valued around $192,700, and the median resident age is 40.3 years. Educational attainment runs 27.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 63.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 20 residential building permits were authorized in New Ulm (Construction Slowdown), down 37% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. New Ulm reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1089.6 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 45.9°F with 31.1 inches of precipitation per year and 38.3 inches of snowfall.
Minnesota tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Minnesota at 98.6 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,125 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Minnesota run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Workers in New Ulm report an average commute of 11.6 minutes, with 79.9% driving alone and 6.5% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 42.4 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of New Ulm'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 housing and income to work and mobility to population change to schools and households to reported crime to within-city variation to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For New Ulm, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for New Ulm?
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 Minnesota, the closest population matches are Fergus Falls (14,138 residents, $50,865 income); North Mankato (14,212 residents, $77,571 income); Marshall (13,880 residents, $64,636 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Mill Valley, CA (14,064 residents); Lakeland, TN (14,068 residents); Colesville, MD (14,075 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.
How far does income reach against housing in New Ulm?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What does the journey to work look like in New Ulm?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 79.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 11.6 minutes.
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.
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.
Population change
Is New Ulm growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -266 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 20 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
2020 estimate
14,129
2025 estimate
13,863
Period change
-1.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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 11 public schools within the city match. 27.2% 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.
Poverty estimate
5.3%
Bachelor's degree+
27.2%
Matched public schools
11
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in New Ulm?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1089.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 52% 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.
Total reported rate
1089.6
Violent rate
72.2
Property rate
1017.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 45.9°F, with 31.1 inches of precipitation and 38.3 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Minnesota is 42.4 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)
42.4
Annual precipitation
31.1 in
Mean temperature
45.9°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Below median income · poverty 5.3% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
98.6 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Minnesota average
C
City profile score · New Ulm, MN
55/100
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+
72 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C+
5.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C-
27.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living D
98.6 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
$63,984
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
New Ulm profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 78/100 (B+) · 72 /100k
Poverty rate: 63/100 (C+) · 5.3%
Bachelor's+ share: 53/100 (C-) · 27.2%
Cost of living: 46/100 (D) · 98.6 index
Household income: 40/100 (D) · $63,984
Where New Ulm sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
New Ulm'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 - New Ulm highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
New Ulm, MN (this city): home $192,700, crime 1,090/100k
Mill Valley, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 1,098/100k
Fergus Falls, MN : home $173,300, crime 2,569/100k
North Mankato, MN : home $252,700, crime 999/100k
Marshall, MN : home $198,900, crime 991/100k
Sauk Rapids, MN : home $240,200, crime 1,376/100k
Robbinsdale, MN : home $280,400, crime 2,157/100k
Worthington, MN : home $184,200, crime 1,205/100k
How does New Ulm compare to other US cities?
New Ulm measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income41% higher than other cities
Home value41% pricier than other cities
Median rent36% pricier than other cities
Safety60% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Minnesota and the picture shifts: New Ulm ranks #128 of 229 Minnesota cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares New Ulm against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Minnesota only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Minnesota-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places New Ulm near the bottom of Minnesota's cities
Among the 785 Minnesota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, New Ulm ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares New Ulm only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#448 of 775
42nd percentile in Minnesota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 785
0th percentile in Minnesota
Median Home Value
#332 of 774
57th percentile in Minnesota
Poverty Rate
#405 of 785
48th percentile in Minnesota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#249 of 784
68th percentile in Minnesota
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 Minnesota only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
41st percentile nationally for median household income · 60th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
New Ulm's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
New Ulm'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 New Ulm's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$192,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 59% 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
New Ulm's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#6,750 of 15,516
More affordable than 56% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#920 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.0×, New Ulm sits in the moderate band:
national rank #6,750 of 15,516 and #920 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
$63,984New Ulm, MN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context New Ulm, MN median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for New Ulm, MN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)27.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,066
Median Income
$63,984
Median Home Value
$192,700
Median Age
40.3
Poverty Rate
5.3%
Labor force participation
63.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
27.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1089.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
72.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1017.5
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
45.9°F
Annual Precipitation
31.1"
Annual Snowfall
38.3"
Schools
Total Schools
11
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
New Ulm's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
14,129 residents
2021
14,132 residents
2022
14,006 residents
2023
13,918 residents
2024
13,888 residents
2025
13,863 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
20
housing units authorized
Single-Family
12
detached homes
Multifamily
8
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.4
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
32
24
8
$6.4M
2020
27
19
8
$5.0M
2021
16
16
0
$3.6M
2022
15
15
0
$3.2M
2023
10
10
0
$3.5M
2024
20
12
8
$4.8M
Permit volume decreased 37% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
11.6 minutes
Drive Alone
79.9%
Carpool
7.7%
Public Transit
0.9%
Walk
4.5%
Work from Home
6.5%
Based on 7,134 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Minnesota statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Minnesota at $225 (electricity about $95 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Minnesota statewide averages, not a meter reading for New Ulm. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Minnesota's BEA cost-of-living index is 98.6 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around New Ulm is $1,125/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Minnesota statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 42.4 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Minnesota statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county New Ulm sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How New Ulm compares to similar-size Minnesota 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.