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Place dossier plate
SheetMS-LAUREL-MS · Laurel, MS 17,129 pop · income 6th pct · 20 tracts
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 Laurel
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Laurel on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Clarksdale · lowest
35,210
Clarksdale · lowest
35,210 median HH income
14.9% of the leader · rank #1
Wilmerding · near
37,764
Wilmerding · near
37,764 median HH income
16.0% of the leader · rank #2
Komatke · near
37,768
Komatke · near
37,768 median HH income
16.0% of the leader · rank #3
Oil Trough · near
37,778
Oil Trough · near
37,778 median HH income
16.0% of the leader · rank #4
Norris City · near
37,778
Norris City · near
37,778 median HH income
16.0% of the leader · rank #5
Laurel · this city
37,781
Laurel · this city
37,781 median HH income
16.0% of the leader · rank #6
Bellaire · highest
236,311
Bellaire · highest
236,311 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 Laurel 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: 17,129.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Laurel - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Laurel places in the 6th percentile for household income and the 4th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
6th
percentile, household income
13th
percentile, home value
0th
percentile, median rent
4th
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: Laurel, MS
Mississippi's Laurel is a small town, with 17,129 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Laurel households earn a median of $37,781 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 25.9%. Laurel's housing stock carries a median value of $110,200, and the median resident age is 35.6 years. 20.4% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 52.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 0 residential building permits were authorized in Laurel (No Permits), down 100% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Laurel's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 4839.9 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Laurel's yearly average temperature at 65.5°F with 59.6 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in Mississippi run below the national norm: the state registers 87.0 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $924 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Mississippi's average monthly utility costs around $223 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 50.9 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Laurel'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 within-city variation to work and mobility to climate and hazard context to schools and households to comparison shortlist to population change 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 Laurel, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Within-city variation
What can 20 Census tracts reveal inside Laurel?
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
PlainCities matches 20 Census tracts to this city.
What does the journey to work look like in Laurel?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 87.3%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 65.5°F, with 59.6 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Mississippi is 50.9 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.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Laurel?
Within Mississippi, the closest population matches are Long Beach (16,876 residents, $71,121 income); Hernando (17,580 residents, $71,451 income); Ocean Springs (18,561 residents, $78,929 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Addison, TX (17,128 residents); Wixom, MI (17,126 residents); West Richland, WA (17,126 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Laurel?
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 20.4% 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
8
Bachelor's degree+
20.4%
Poverty estimate
25.9%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
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 -140 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 0 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
-0.8%
2025 estimate
17,662
2020 estimate
17,802
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Laurel?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 25.9%, 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
$37,781
Home value
$110,200
Value / income
2.9×
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 Laurel?
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 4839.9 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 112% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
3788.0
Violent rate
1051.9
Total reported rate
4839.9
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 25.9% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
87.0 (US=100)
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, Mississippi average
F
City profile score · Laurel, MS
27/100
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+
87.0 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
20.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
25.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$37,781
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
1,052 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Laurel profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 97/100 (A+) · 87.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 35/100 (F) · 20.4%
Poverty rate: 5/100 (F) · 25.9%
Household income: 4/100 (F) · $37,781
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,052 /100k
Where Laurel sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Laurel'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 - Laurel highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Laurel, MS (this city): home $110,200, crime 4,840/100k
Addison, TX : home $466,000, crime 5,862/100k
Wixom, MI : home $336,200, crime 1,151/100k
West Richland, WA : home $404,300, crime 687/100k
Bellaire, TX : home $978,300, crime 2,612/100k
Long Beach, MS : home $205,300, crime 1,073/100k
Hernando, MS : home $282,200, crime 565/100k
Gautier, MS : home $162,700, crime 2,171/100k
Corinth, MS : home $164,200, crime 3,493/100k
How does Laurel compare to other US cities?
Here's how Laurel stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income6% higher than other cities
Home value13% pricier than other cities
Median rent0% pricier than other cities
Safety4% 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 Mississippi, Laurel ranks #54 of 56 Mississippi 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 Laurel against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Mississippi only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Mississippi-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Laurel near the bottom of Mississippi's cities
Among the 395 Mississippi cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Laurel ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Laurel only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#234 of 345
32nd percentile in Mississippi
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 395
0th percentile in Mississippi
Median Home Value
#175 of 348
50th percentile in Mississippi
Poverty Rate
#108 of 393
72nd percentile in Mississippi
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#147 of 394
62nd percentile in Mississippi
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 Mississippi only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
6th percentile nationally for median household income · 4th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Laurel's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Laurel'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 Laurel's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$110,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 87% 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
Laurel's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,238 of 15,516
More affordable than 60% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#794 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.9×, Laurel sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,238 of 15,516 and #794 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$37,781Laurel, MS median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Laurel, MS median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Laurel, MS.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)25.9%
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
17,129
Median Income
$37,781
Median Home Value
$110,200
Median Age
35.6
Poverty Rate
25.9%
Labor force participation
52.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
4839.9
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1051.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3788.0
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
65.5°F
Annual Precipitation
59.6"
Annual Snowfall
0.0"
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Laurel's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
17,802 residents
2021
17,763 residents
2022
17,718 residents
2023
17,641 residents
2024
17,622 residents
2025
17,662 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
Total Permits (2024)
0
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
4
4
0
$0.8M
2020
93
93
0
$12.1M
2021
79
53
26
$8.8M
2022
43
21
22
$5.0M
2023
45
25
20
$5.2M
2024
0
0
0
-
Permit volume decreased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
87.3%
Carpool
6.8%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
4.2%
Based on 6,993 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Mississippi statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $223
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Mississippi at $223 (electricity about $135 , water and sewer about $38 ).
These are Mississippi statewide averages, not a meter reading for Laurel. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Mississippi's BEA cost-of-living index is 87.0 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Laurel is $924/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Mississippi statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 50.9 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Mississippi statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Laurel sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Laurel compares to similar-size Mississippi 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.