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Place dossier plate
SheetMO-STEELE-MO · Steele, MO 1,449 pop · income 4th 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 Steele
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Steele on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Steele · this city · lowest
33,750
Steele · this city · lowest
33,750 median HH income
24.6% of the leader · rank #1
Griffithville · near
33,750
Griffithville · near
33,750 median HH income
24.6% of the leader · rank #2
Payneway · near
33,750
Payneway · near
33,750 median HH income
24.6% of the leader · rank #3
Hornbrook · near
33,750
Hornbrook · near
33,750 median HH income
24.6% of the leader · rank #4
Lemon Grove · near
33,750
Lemon Grove · near
33,750 median HH income
24.6% of the leader · rank #5
Dunlap · highest
137,240
Dunlap · highest
137,240 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
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 Steele 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: 1,449.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Steele - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Steele lands in the 4th percentile for household income and the 11th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
4th
percentile, household income
16th
percentile, home value
7th
percentile, median rent
11th
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: Steele, MO
Steele is a small town in Missouri, home to 1,449 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Steele report a median income of $33,750 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 32.8%. Steele's housing stock carries a median value of $115,900, and the median resident age is 34.3 years. Educational attainment runs 16.6% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 46.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 1 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Low Activity). Steele's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 3509.8 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, above the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures 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). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $972 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Missouri run around $219, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Natural-hazard exposure scores 50.6 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Steele'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 comparison shortlist to population change to schools and households to housing and income to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Steele, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history.
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
What does the journey to work look like in Steele?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 72.6%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Steele?
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 Shell Knob (1,445 residents, $51,852 income); Princeton (1,434 residents, $55,066 income); Bel-Nor (1,472 residents, $106,875 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Aberdeen, OH (1,449 residents); Cleora, OK (1,449 residents); Dunlap, IL (1,448 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.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -149 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -8.1% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 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.
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 3 public schools within the city match. 16.6% 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Steele?
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 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 32.8%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.4×
Home value
$115,900
Household income
$33,750
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Steele?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3509.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 54% higher 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
3509.8
Violent rate
475.9
Property rate
3033.9
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 32.8% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
90.8 (US=100)
Affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Missouri average
F
City profile score · Steele, MO
24/100
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.
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
16.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
476 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$33,750
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
32.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Steele profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 83/100 (A-) · 90.8 index
Bachelor's+ share: 24/100 (F) · 16.6%
Violent crime: 17/100 (F) · 476 /100k
Household income: 0/100 (F) · $33,750
Poverty rate: 0/100 (F) · 32.8%
Where Steele sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Steele'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 - Steele highlighted among 22 peers.Read the chart values
Steele, MO (this city): home $115,900, crime 3,510/100k
Kennebunkport, ME : home $805,200, crime 646/100k
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 Steele compare to other US cities?
Where Steele sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income4% higher than other cities
Home value16% pricier than other cities
Median rent7% pricier than other cities
Safety11% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Missouri and the picture shifts: Steele ranks #194 of 234 Missouri cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Steele 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 Steele near the bottom of Missouri's cities
Among the 875 Missouri cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Steele ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Steele only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#772 of 842
8th percentile in Missouri
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 875
0th percentile in Missouri
Median Home Value
#439 of 833
47th percentile in Missouri
Poverty Rate
#59 of 875
93rd percentile in Missouri
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#402 of 875
53rd 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
4th percentile nationally for median household income · 11th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Steele's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Steele'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 Steele's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$115,900Among the most affordablemore affordable than 84% 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
Steele's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,716 of 15,516
More affordable than 44% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,064 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.4×, Steele sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,716 of 15,516 and #7,064 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$33,750Steele, MO median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Steele, 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 Steele, MO.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)16.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)32.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)46.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
1,449
Median Income
$33,750
Median Home Value
$115,900
Median Age
34.3
Poverty Rate
32.8%
Labor force participation
46.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
16.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3509.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
475.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3033.9
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
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Steele's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
1,841 residents
2021
1,797 residents
2022
1,750 residents
2023
1,722 residents
2024
1,697 residents
2025
1,692 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Low Activity
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
0
0
0
-
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
1
1
0
$0.3M
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
72.6%
Carpool
16.6%
Public Transit
1.4%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
5.3%
Other
2.5%
Based on 493 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 Steele. 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 Steele 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 Steele sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Steele 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.