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Place dossier plate
SheetMN-PRIOR-LAKE-MN · Prior Lake, MN 27,832 pop · income 90th 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 Prior Lake
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Prior Lake on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Hamtramck · lowest
40,103
Hamtramck · lowest
40,103 median HH income
30.0% of the leader · rank #1
Piermont · near
130,263
Piermont · near
130,263 median HH income
97.4% of the leader · rank #2
Prior Lake · this city
130,278
Prior Lake · this city
130,278 median HH income
97.4% of the leader · rank #3
North Babylon · near
130,293
North Babylon · near
130,293 median HH income
97.4% of the leader · rank #4
Creekside · near
130,300
Creekside · near
130,300 median HH income
97.4% of the leader · rank #5
Wakefield · near
130,320
Wakefield · near
130,320 median HH income
97.4% of the leader · rank #6
Walnut · highest
133,762
Walnut · highest
133,762 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 Prior Lake 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: 27,832.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Prior Lake - the verdict
Prior Lake ranks in the 90th percentile for household income and the 57th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
90th
percentile, household income
80th
percentile, home value
36th
percentile, median rent
57th
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: Prior Lake, MN
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 27,832 residents in Prior Lake, a small city within Minnesota. The typical household in Prior Lake brings in $130,278 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 1.4%. Home values in Prior Lake run a median of $429,900, and the median resident age is 39.7 years. 51.5% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 72.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 51 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 74% from five years earlier. Prior Lake reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1178.9 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Minnesota tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 98.6 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,125 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $225 across Minnesota, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 42.4 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Prior Lake'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 population change to reported crime to schools and households to work and mobility to housing and income to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Prior Lake, 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.
1. Population change
Is Prior Lake growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +509 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 51 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Prior Lake?
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 1178.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 48% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
What does the education layer cover for Prior Lake?
The NCES join finds 10 public schools within the city match. 51.5% 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 Prior Lake?
Within Minnesota, the closest population matches are Ramsey (28,070 residents, $112,060 income); Oakdale (28,109 residents, $90,379 income); Chaska (28,146 residents, $110,000 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hamtramck, MI (27,830 residents); Walnut, CA (27,857 residents); Shirley, NY (27,807 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Prior Lake?
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 68.1%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
1.0%
Work from home
22.0%
Drive alone
68.1%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 15,117 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Prior Lake?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 1.4%, 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
$130,278
Home value
$429,900
Value / income
3.3×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Top-decile income · poverty 1.4% (Very low poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
98.6 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Minnesota average
B+
City profile score · Prior Lake, MN
76/100
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.
Household income A+
$130,278
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A+
1.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A
51.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime B-
107 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
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.
Prior Lake profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 90/100 (A+) · $130,278
Poverty rate: 90/100 (A+) · 1.4%
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 51.5%
Violent crime: 69/100 (B-) · 107 /100k
Cost of living: 46/100 (D) · 98.6 index
Where Prior Lake sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Prior Lake'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 - Prior Lake highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Prior Lake, MN (this city): home $429,900, crime 1,179/100k
Hamtramck, MI : home $116,400, crime 2,084/100k
Walnut, CA : home $972,500, crime 2,019/100k
Huntley, IL : home $318,500, crime 457/100k
Garden City, KS : home $186,200, crime 2,592/100k
Ramsey, MN : home $345,000, crime 580/100k
Oakdale, MN : home $305,900, crime 1,942/100k
Chaska, MN : home $379,400, crime 720/100k
Rosemount, MN : home $406,100, crime 556/100k
Owatonna, MN : home $234,600, crime 971/100k
How does Prior Lake compare to other US cities?
Where Prior Lake sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income90% higher than other cities
Home value80% pricier than other cities
Median rent36% pricier than other cities
Safety57% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Minnesota alone, Prior Lake ranks #134 of 229 Minnesota cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Prior Lake 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 Prior Lake near the bottom of Minnesota's cities
Among the 785 Minnesota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Prior Lake ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Prior Lake only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#42 of 775
95th percentile in Minnesota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 785
0th percentile in Minnesota
Median Home Value
#50 of 774
94th percentile in Minnesota
Poverty Rate
#645 of 785
17th percentile in Minnesota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#53 of 784
93rd 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
90th percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Prior Lake's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Prior Lake'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 Prior Lake's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$429,90020th percentilemore affordable than 20% 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
Prior Lake's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,127 of 15,516
More affordable than 48% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,286 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.3×, Prior Lake sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,127 of 15,516 and #1,286 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
$130,278Prior Lake, MN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Prior Lake, 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 Prior Lake, MN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)51.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)1.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)72.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
27,832
Median Income
$130,278
Median Home Value
$429,900
Median Age
39.7
Poverty Rate
1.4%
Labor force participation
72.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
51.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1178.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
106.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1072.3
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
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Prior Lake's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
27,631 residents
2021
28,148 residents
2022
28,178 residents
2023
28,090 residents
2024
28,069 residents
2025
28,140 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
51
housing units authorized
Single-Family
51
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
197
197
0
$55.9M
2020
157
157
0
$53.8M
2021
132
132
0
$52.8M
2022
105
105
0
$44.1M
2023
68
68
0
$30.3M
2024
51
51
0
$28.3M
Permit volume decreased 74% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
68.1%
Carpool
6.7%
Public Transit
1.0%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
22.0%
Other
1.2%
Based on 15,117 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 Prior Lake. 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 Prior Lake 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 Prior Lake sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Prior Lake 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, 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.