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Place dossier plate
SheetMN-STILLWATER-MN · Stillwater, MN 19,323 pop · income 83rd 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 Stillwater
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Stillwater on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Cocoa · lowest
56,553
Cocoa · lowest
56,553 median HH income
42.0% of the leader · rank #1
Stillwater · this city
109,297
Stillwater · this city
109,297 median HH income
81.1% of the leader · rank #2
Raleigh Hills · near
109,306
Raleigh Hills · near
109,306 median HH income
81.1% of the leader · rank #3
San Rafael · near
109,317
San Rafael · near
109,317 median HH income
81.2% of the leader · rank #4
Overland · near
109,327
Overland · near
109,327 median HH income
81.2% of the leader · rank #5
Rockton · near
109,333
Rockton · near
109,333 median HH income
81.2% of the leader · rank #6
Rosedale · highest
134,697
Rosedale · highest
134,697 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 Stillwater 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: 19,323.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Stillwater - the verdict
Nationally, Stillwater sits in the 83rd percentile for household income and the 66th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
83rd
percentile, household income
77th
percentile, home value
36th
percentile, median rent
66th
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: Stillwater, MN
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 19,323 residents in Stillwater, a small town within Minnesota. Stillwater households earn a median of $109,297 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.2%. Typical homes in Stillwater are valued around $398,100, and the median resident age is 42.5 years. 50.9% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 62.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 4 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 95% from five years earlier. Stillwater reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 948.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Stillwater's yearly average temperature at 48.4°F with 35.1 inches of precipitation per year.
Minnesota tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Minnesota scores 98.6 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,125 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Minnesota's average monthly utility costs around $225 (state average). The average commute for Stillwater workers runs 16.5 minutes, with 69.9% driving alone and 19.7% working from home. 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 Stillwater'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 climate and hazard context to comparison shortlist to population change to work and mobility to reported crime to schools and households to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Stillwater, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, 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. Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in Stillwater?
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 48.4°F, with 35.1 inches of precipitation. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Stillwater?
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 St. Michael (19,267 residents, $130,814 income); Sartell (19,620 residents, $77,465 income); Hopkins (18,696 residents, $71,170 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Rosedale, CA (19,325 residents); Cocoa, FL (19,330 residents); Santa Fe Springs, CA (19,310 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.
Is Stillwater growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -48 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 4 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
What does the journey to work look like in Stillwater?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 69.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.5 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. 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.
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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Stillwater?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 948.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 58% 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
948.7
Violent rate
83.4
Property rate
865.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the education layer cover for Stillwater?
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 17 public schools within the city match. 50.9% 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
4.2%
Bachelor's degree+
50.9%
Matched public schools
17
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Stillwater?
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 3.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.6×
Home value
$398,100
Household income
$109,297
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Minnesota average
B
City profile score · Stillwater, MN
71/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share A
50.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A-
$109,297
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime B+
83 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B
4.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better 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.
Stillwater profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 85/100 (A) · 50.9%
Household income: 81/100 (A-) · $109,297
Violent crime: 75/100 (B+) · 83 /100k
Poverty rate: 71/100 (B) · 4.2%
Cost of living: 46/100 (D) · 98.6 index
Where Stillwater sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Stillwater'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 - Stillwater highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Stillwater, MN (this city): home $398,100, crime 949/100k
Cocoa, FL : home $215,700, crime 4,636/100k
Santa Fe Springs, CA : home $624,700, crime 7,066/100k
Seminole, FL : home $312,700, crime 2,068/100k
West Mifflin, PA : home $131,400, crime 3,021/100k
North Myrtle Beach, SC : home $371,900, crime 3,584/100k
Sartell, MN : home $278,000, crime 1,310/100k
Hopkins, MN : home $350,100, crime 1,577/100k
Albert Lea, MN : home $150,400, crime 1,698/100k
South St. Paul, MN : home $266,800, crime 1,671/100k
Forest Lake, MN : home $375,900, crime 1,596/100k
How does Stillwater compare to other US cities?
Here's how Stillwater stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income83% higher than other cities
Home value77% pricier than other cities
Median rent36% pricier than other cities
Safety66% 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, Stillwater ranks #116 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 Stillwater 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 Stillwater near the bottom of Minnesota's cities
Among the 785 Minnesota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Stillwater ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Stillwater only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#94 of 775
88th percentile in Minnesota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 785
0th percentile in Minnesota
Median Home Value
#62 of 774
92nd percentile in Minnesota
Poverty Rate
#472 of 785
39th percentile in Minnesota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#56 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
83rd percentile nationally for median household income · 66th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Stillwater's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Stillwater'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 Stillwater's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$398,10023rd percentilemore affordable than 23% 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
Stillwater'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
#9,518 of 15,516
More affordable than 39% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,631 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.6×, Stillwater sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,518 of 15,516 and #1,631 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
$109,297Stillwater, MN median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Stillwater, 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 Stillwater, MN.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)50.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
19,323
Median Income
$109,297
Median Home Value
$398,100
Median Age
42.5
Poverty Rate
4.2%
Labor force participation
62.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
50.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
948.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
83.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
865.3
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
48.4°F
Annual Precipitation
35.1"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Stillwater's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
19,402 residents
2021
19,440 residents
2022
19,308 residents
2023
19,249 residents
2024
19,331 residents
2025
19,354 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
4
housing units authorized
Single-Family
4
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
78
46
32
$24.0M
2020
94
39
55
$34.9M
2021
39
39
0
$18.1M
2022
86
25
61
$27.6M
2023
83
13
70
$24.2M
2024
4
4
0
$1.7M
Permit volume decreased 95% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.5 minutes
Drive Alone
69.9%
Carpool
6.9%
Public Transit
0.7%
Walk
1.7%
Work from Home
19.7%
Other
1.1%
Based on 9,631 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 Stillwater. 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 Stillwater 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 Stillwater sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Stillwater 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.