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Place dossier plate
SheetMN-SAUK-RAPIDS-MN · Sauk Rapids, MN 13,851 pop · income 46th 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 Sauk Rapids
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Sauk Rapids on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Coldwater · lowest
50,084
Coldwater · lowest
50,084 median HH income
31.4% of the leader · rank #1
Wayland · near
67,000
Wayland · near
67,000 median HH income
42.0% of the leader · rank #2
Alexandria · near
67,000
Alexandria · near
67,000 median HH income
42.0% of the leader · rank #3
Cazenovia · near
67,000
Cazenovia · near
67,000 median HH income
42.0% of the leader · rank #4
Sauk Rapids · this city
67,004
Sauk Rapids · this city
67,004 median HH income
42.0% of the leader · rank #5
Stock Island · near
67,005
Stock Island · near
67,005 median HH income
42.0% of the leader · rank #6
Rogers · highest
159,638
Rogers · highest
159,638 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 Sauk Rapids 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: 13,851.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Sauk Rapids - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Sauk Rapids places in the 46th percentile for household income and the 50th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
46th
percentile, household income
53rd
percentile, home value
36th
percentile, median rent
50th
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: Sauk Rapids, MN
Sauk Rapids is a small town in Minnesota, home to 13,851 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Sauk Rapids report a median income of $67,004 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.0%. Sauk Rapids's housing stock carries a median value of $240,200, and the median resident age is 36.0 years. Educational attainment runs 28.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 71.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 23 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 86% from five years earlier. Sauk Rapids reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1375.9 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
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). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,125 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Minnesota's average monthly utility costs around $225 (state average). Workers in Sauk Rapids report an average commute of 18.7 minutes, with 81.5% driving alone and 7.4% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 42.4 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Sauk Rapids'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 work and mobility to housing and income to comparison shortlist to reported crime to population change to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Sauk Rapids, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
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. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Sauk Rapids?
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 81.5%. The reported mean trip to work is 18.7 minutes.
How far does income reach against housing in Sauk Rapids?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.0%, 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Sauk Rapids?
Within Minnesota, the closest population matches are Marshall (13,880 residents, $64,636 income); Worthington (13,792 residents, $61,840 income); New Ulm (14,066 residents, $63,984 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Beachwood, OH (13,850 residents); Channahon, IL (13,854 residents); Lyndhurst, OH (13,854 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 Sauk Rapids?
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 1375.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 40% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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 Sauk Rapids growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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 declined by -134 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 23 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
-1.0%
2025 estimate
13,768
2020 estimate
13,902
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the education layer cover for Sauk Rapids?
The NCES join finds 7 public schools within the city match. 28.0% 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.
Matched public schools
7
Bachelor's degree+
28.0%
Poverty estimate
3.0%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Minnesota average
C
City profile score · Sauk Rapids, MN
59/100
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.
Poverty rate B+
3.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime B
87 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C-
28.0%
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
$67,004
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Sauk Rapids profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 79/100 (B+) · 3.0%
Violent crime: 74/100 (B) · 87 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 54/100 (C-) · 28.0%
Cost of living: 46/100 (D) · 98.6 index
Household income: 45/100 (D) · $67,004
Where Sauk Rapids sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Sauk Rapids'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 - Sauk Rapids highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Sauk Rapids, MN (this city): home $240,200, crime 1,376/100k
Beachwood, OH : home $381,600, crime 2,275/100k
Channahon, IL : home $298,000, crime 571/100k
Lyndhurst, OH : home $198,900, crime 1,188/100k
Coldwater, MI : home $120,900, crime 1,581/100k
Marshall, MN : home $198,900, crime 991/100k
Worthington, MN : home $184,200, crime 1,205/100k
New Ulm, MN : home $192,700, crime 1,090/100k
Fergus Falls, MN : home $173,300, crime 2,569/100k
North Mankato, MN : home $252,700, crime 999/100k
Rogers, MN : home $437,900, crime 1,670/100k
How does Sauk Rapids compare to other US cities?
Sauk Rapids measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income46% higher than other cities
Home value53% pricier than other cities
Median rent36% pricier than other cities
Safety50% 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 Minnesota, Sauk Rapids ranks #151 of 229 Minnesota 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 Sauk Rapids 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 Sauk Rapids near the bottom of Minnesota's cities
Among the 785 Minnesota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Sauk Rapids ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Sauk Rapids only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#400 of 775
48th percentile in Minnesota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 785
0th percentile in Minnesota
Median Home Value
#232 of 774
70th percentile in Minnesota
Poverty Rate
#535 of 785
31st percentile in Minnesota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#232 of 784
70th 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
46th percentile nationally for median household income · 50th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Sauk Rapids's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Sauk Rapids'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 Sauk Rapids's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$240,20047th percentilemore affordable than 47% 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
Sauk Rapids's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,307 of 15,516
More affordable than 40% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,573 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.6×, Sauk Rapids sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,307 of 15,516 and #1,573 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
$67,004Sauk Rapids, MN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Sauk Rapids, 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 Sauk Rapids, MN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)28.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)71.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
13,851
Median Income
$67,004
Median Home Value
$240,200
Median Age
36.0
Poverty Rate
3.0%
Labor force participation
71.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
28.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1375.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
87.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1288.6
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
Sauk Rapids's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
13,902 residents
2021
13,893 residents
2022
13,838 residents
2023
13,786 residents
2024
13,815 residents
2025
13,768 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
23
housing units authorized
Single-Family
19
detached homes
Multifamily
4
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
161
26
135
$23.2M
2020
18
18
0
$4.9M
2021
20
20
0
$5.7M
2022
14
14
0
$3.9M
2023
16
16
0
$4.1M
2024
23
19
4
$6.7M
Permit volume decreased 86% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
18.7 minutes
Drive Alone
81.5%
Carpool
6.9%
Public Transit
0.8%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
7.4%
Other
2.4%
Based on 7,483 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 Sauk Rapids. 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 Sauk Rapids 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 Sauk Rapids sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Sauk Rapids 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.