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Place dossier plate
SheetMO-CLAYTON-MO · Clayton, MO 17,282 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 Clayton
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Clayton on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Kirksville · lowest
48,063
Kirksville · lowest
48,063 median HH income
37.3% of the leader · rank #1
Cedar Valley · near
128,828
Cedar Valley · near
128,828 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Clayton · this city
128,898
Clayton · this city
128,898 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #3
St. Johns · near
128,920
St. Johns · near
128,920 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #4
Swampscott · near
128,964
Swampscott · near
128,964 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #5
North Bethesda · near
128,970
North Bethesda · near
128,970 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
Applewood · highest
128,988
Applewood · highest
128,988 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 Clayton 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: 17,282.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Clayton - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Clayton places in the 90th percentile for household income and the 68th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
90th
percentile, household income
95th
percentile, home value
7th
percentile, median rent
68th
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: Clayton, MO
Clayton is a small town in Missouri, home to 17,282 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Clayton households earn a median of $128,898 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 6.4%. Clayton's housing stock carries a median value of $799,200, and the median resident age is 28.7 years. About 83.8% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 52.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 196 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 532% from five years earlier. Clayton reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 897.1 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Missouri run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Missouri at 90.8 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $972 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Missouri run around $219, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Clayton workers runs 14.0 minutes, with 57.4% driving alone and 19.2% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 50.6 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Clayton'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 work and mobility to comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Clayton, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, 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
Is Clayton growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +446 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +2.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 196 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 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Clayton?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 57.4%. The reported mean trip to work is 14.0 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Clayton?
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 Missouri, the closest population matches are Kirksville (17,493 residents, $48,063 income); Lake St. Louis (17,538 residents, $123,427 income); Hannibal (16,825 residents, $54,071 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cameron Park, CA (17,283 residents); Stafford, TX (17,279 residents); Amesbury, MA (17,277 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.
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 6 public schools within the city match. 83.8% 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.
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 Clayton?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 897.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 61% 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
897.1
Violent rate
102.9
Property rate
794.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Clayton?
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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
6.2×
Home value
$799,200
Household income
$128,898
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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+
83.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A+
$128,898
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Cost of living A-
90.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime B
103 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C
6.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Clayton profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 100/100 (A+) · 83.8%
Household income: 90/100 (A+) · $128,898
Cost of living: 83/100 (A-) · 90.8 index
Violent crime: 70/100 (B) · 103 /100k
Poverty rate: 56/100 (C) · 6.4%
Where Clayton sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Clayton'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 - Clayton highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Clayton, MO (this city): home $799,200, crime 897/100k
Stafford, TX : home $247,900, crime 3,521/100k
Amesbury, MA : home $475,400, crime 670/100k
Kirksville, MO : home $145,300, crime 2,352/100k
Lake St. Louis, MO : home $375,300, crime 662/100k
Hannibal, MO : home $126,300, crime 2,762/100k
Farmington, MO : home $187,500, crime 3,074/100k
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 Clayton compare to other US cities?
Where Clayton 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 value95% pricier than other cities
Median rent7% pricier than other cities
Safety68% 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 Missouri, Clayton ranks #64 of 234 Missouri 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 Clayton against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Missouri only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Missouri-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Clayton near the bottom of Missouri's cities
Among the 875 Missouri cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Clayton ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Clayton only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#31 of 842
96th percentile in Missouri
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 875
0th percentile in Missouri
Median Home Value
#8 of 833
99th percentile in Missouri
Poverty Rate
#563 of 875
35th percentile in Missouri
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#7 of 875
99th percentile in Missouri
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 Missouri only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
90th percentile nationally for median household income · 68th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Clayton's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Clayton'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 Clayton's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$799,2005th percentilemore affordable than 5% 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
Clayton's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,260 of 15,516
More affordable than 8% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#3,008 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 6.2×, Clayton sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,260 of 15,516 and #3,008 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
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
$128,898Clayton, MO median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Clayton, MO median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Clayton, MO.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)83.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)52.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
17,282
Median Income
$128,898
Median Home Value
$799,200
Median Age
28.7
Poverty Rate
6.4%
Labor force participation
52.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
83.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
897.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
102.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
794.2
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
6
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Clayton's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,361 residents
2021
17,293 residents
2022
17,157 residents
2023
17,510 residents
2024
17,503 residents
2025
17,807 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
196
housing units authorized
Single-Family
7
detached homes
Multifamily
189
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
11.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
31
13
18
$23.3M
2020
15
15
0
$11.6M
2021
4
4
0
$4.7M
2022
242
5
237
$57.4M
2023
5
5
0
$6.1M
2024
196
7
189
$67.8M
Permit volume increased 532% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
14.0 minutes
Drive Alone
57.4%
Carpool
7.2%
Public Transit
2.0%
Walk
12.3%
Work from Home
19.2%
Other
1.9%
Based on 7,588 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Missouri statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $219
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Missouri at $219 (electricity about $105 , water and sewer about $42 ).
These are Missouri statewide averages, not a meter reading for Clayton. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Missouri's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.8 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Clayton is $972/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Missouri statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 50.6 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Missouri statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Clayton sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Clayton compares to similar-size Missouri 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.