Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetMT-PLAINS-MT · Plains, MT 1,077 pop · income 1st pct · 2 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 Plains
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Plains on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Pamplico · lowest
24,646
Pamplico · lowest
24,646 median HH income
18.4% of the leader · rank #1
Plains · this city
24,661
Plains · this city
24,661 median HH income
18.4% of the leader · rank #2
Laurel · near
24,663
Laurel · near
24,663 median HH income
18.4% of the leader · rank #3
Lake Providen… · near
24,670
Lake Providen… · near
24,670 median HH income
18.4% of the leader · rank #4
Allakaket · near
24,688
Allakaket · near
24,688 median HH income
18.4% of the leader · rank #5
New Hackensack · highest
134,063
New Hackensack · highest
134,063 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 Plains 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: 1,077.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Plains - the verdict
Nationally, Plains sits in the 1st percentile for household income and the 89th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
1st
percentile, household income
45th
percentile, home value
61st
percentile, median rent
89th
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: Plains, MT
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 1,077 residents in Plains, a small town within Montana. Median household income here is $24,661 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 12.4%. Typical homes in Plains are valued around $209,200, and the median resident age is 43.5 years. About 20.0% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 52.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Plains reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 396.5 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Montana run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Montana scores 94.6 (Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,336 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Montana run around $175, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 15.6 minutes, with 60.6% driving alone and 14.4% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 out of 100 (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Plains'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 schools and households to work and mobility to population change to comparison shortlist to housing and income to reported crime to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Plains, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Plains?
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. 20.0% 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Plains?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 60.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 15.6 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. 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 Plains?
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 Montana, the closest population matches are Gallatin Gateway (1,092 residents, $81,429 income); White Sulphur Springs (1,097 residents, $56,424 income); Harlowton (1,054 residents, $53,750 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Grandview, IL (1,077 residents); Eden Valley, MN (1,077 residents); Mount Royal, NJ (1,077 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.
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.
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 Plains growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +146 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +13.1% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. 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.
2020 estimate
1,115
2025 estimate
1,261
Period change
+13.1%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Plains?
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 8.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 12.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
8.5×
Home value
$209,200
Household income
$24,661
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 Plains?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 396.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 83% 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
396.5
Violent rate
0.0
Property rate
396.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 12.4% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.6 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Montana average
D
City profile score · Plains, MT
44/100
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.
Violent crime A+
0 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living B-
94.6 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
12.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$24,661
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Plains profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 97/100 (A+) · 0 /100k
Cost of living: 66/100 (B-) · 94.6 index
Bachelor's+ share: 34/100 (F) · 20.0%
Poverty rate: 30/100 (F) · 12.4%
Household income: 0/100 (F) · $24,661
Where Plains sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Plains'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 - Plains highlighted among 22 peers.Read the chart values
Plains, MT (this city): home $209,200, crime 397/100k
St. Ignatius, MT : home $194,200, crime 9,809/100k
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 Plains compare to other US cities?
Here's how Plains stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income1% higher than other cities
Home value45% pricier than other cities
Median rent61% pricier than other cities
Safety89% 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 Montana, Plains ranks #3 of 39 Montana 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 Plains against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Montana only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Montana-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Plains near the bottom of Montana's cities
Among the 317 Montana cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Plains ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Plains only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#276 of 282
2nd percentile in Montana
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 317
0th percentile in Montana
Median Home Value
#158 of 279
43rd percentile in Montana
Poverty Rate
#89 of 315
71st percentile in Montana
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#181 of 317
43rd percentile in Montana
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 Montana only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
1st percentile nationally for median household income · 89th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Plains's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Plains'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 Plains's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$209,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 55% 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
Plains's home-value-to-income ratio: 8.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,153 of 15,516
More affordable than 2% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#11,106 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 8.5×, Plains sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,153 of 15,516 and #11,106 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$24,661Plains, MT median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Plains, MT median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Plains, MT.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)12.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)52.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
1,077
Median Income
$24,661
Median Home Value
$209,200
Median Age
43.5
Poverty Rate
12.4%
Labor force participation
52.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
396.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
396.5
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
Plains's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
1,115 residents
2021
1,158 residents
2022
1,196 residents
2023
1,227 residents
2024
1,244 residents
2025
1,261 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
15.6 minutes
Drive Alone
60.6%
Carpool
14.0%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
11.0%
Work from Home
14.4%
Based on 493 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Montana statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $175
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Montana at $175 (electricity about $80 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Montana statewide averages, not a meter reading for Plains. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Montana's BEA cost-of-living index is 94.6 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Plains is $1,336/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Montana statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Montana statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Plains sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Plains compares to similar-size Montana 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.