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Place dossier plate
SheetNC-FRANKLIN-NC · Franklin, NC 4,221 pop · income 12th pct · 10 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 Franklin
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Franklin on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Anna · lowest
36,238
Anna · lowest
36,238 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #1
Sparta · near
43,989
Sparta · near
43,989 median HH income
35.1% of the leader · rank #2
Green Valley… · near
43,990
Green Valley… · near
43,990 median HH income
35.1% of the leader · rank #3
Franklin · this city
43,991
Franklin · this city
43,991 median HH income
35.1% of the leader · rank #4
Monroe · near
43,991
Monroe · near
43,991 median HH income
35.1% of the leader · rank #5
Lime Lake · near
43,994
Lime Lake · near
43,994 median HH income
35.1% of the leader · rank #6
Fayetteville · highest
125,417
Fayetteville · highest
125,417 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 Franklin 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: 4,221.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Franklin - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Franklin places in the 12th percentile for household income and the 14th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
12th
percentile, household income
40th
percentile, home value
48th
percentile, median rent
14th
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: Franklin, NC
Franklin is a small town in North Carolina, home to 4,221 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Franklin brings in $43,991 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 10.2%. Franklin's housing stock carries a median value of $190,600, and the median resident age is 47.3 years. Educational attainment runs 22.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 50.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Franklin's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 3152.8 crimes per 100,000 residents, above the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 56.1°F with 55.5 inches of precipitation per year and 2.6 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in North Carolina run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts North Carolina at 94.3 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,161 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts North Carolina's average monthly utility costs around $215 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 66.7 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Franklin'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 comparison shortlist to reported crime to schools and households to housing and income to climate and hazard context to within-city variation to population change to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Franklin, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
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. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Franklin?
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 North Carolina, the closest population matches are Mount Olive (4,204 residents, $45,869 income); Spindale (4,244 residents, $38,509 income); Wingate (4,169 residents, $65,208 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fayette, AL (4,221 residents); Broadway, VA (4,221 residents); Anna, IL (4,222 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Franklin?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3152.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 38% 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.
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 10 public schools within the city match. 22.2% 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.
PlainCities matches 10 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Franklin?
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 4.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 10.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.3×
Home value
$190,600
Household income
$43,991
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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 56.1°F, with 55.5 inches of precipitation and 2.6 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for North Carolina is 66.7 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
66.7
Annual precipitation
55.5 in
Mean temperature
56.1°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Franklin growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +231 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.5% 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
4,172
2025 estimate
4,403
Period change
+5.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Franklin?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 82.4%. 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.
Drive alone
82.4%
Work from home
5.3%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 1,787 workers age 16+.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, North Carolina average
F
City profile score · Franklin, NC
38/100
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 B-
94.3 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 D
22.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime D
251 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate F
10.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$43,991
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Franklin profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 67/100 (B-) · 94.3 index
Bachelor's+ share: 41/100 (D) · 22.2%
Violent crime: 40/100 (D) · 251 /100k
Poverty rate: 39/100 (F) · 10.2%
Household income: 12/100 (F) · $43,991
Where Franklin sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Franklin'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 - Franklin highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Franklin, NC (this city): home $190,600, crime 3,153/100k
Fayette, AL : home $122,100, crime 1,446/100k
Broadway, VA : home $264,900, crime 389/100k
Anna, IL : home $128,200, crime 3,253/100k
Mount Olive, NC : home $117,200, crime 3,248/100k
Surf City, NC : home $478,600, crime 2,070/100k
Benson, NC : home $176,000, crime 3,545/100k
Southport, NC : home $394,900, crime 1,157/100k
How does Franklin compare to other US cities?
Where Franklin sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income12% higher than other cities
Home value40% pricier than other cities
Median rent48% pricier than other cities
Safety14% 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 North Carolina, Franklin ranks #114 of 195 North Carolina 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 Franklin against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to North Carolina only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
North Carolina-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Franklin near the bottom of North Carolina's cities
Among the 746 North Carolina cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Franklin ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Franklin only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#533 of 700
24th percentile in North Carolina
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 746
0th percentile in North Carolina
Median Home Value
#357 of 708
50th percentile in North Carolina
Poverty Rate
#354 of 746
52nd percentile in North Carolina
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#358 of 746
52nd percentile in North Carolina
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 North Carolina only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
12th percentile nationally for median household income · 14th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Franklin's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Franklin'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 Franklin's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$190,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 60% 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
Franklin's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#11,609 of 15,516
More affordable than 25% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8,941 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 4.3×, Franklin sits in the moderate band:
national rank #11,609 of 15,516 and #8,941 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
$43,991Franklin, NC median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Franklin, NC median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Franklin, NC.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)22.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)10.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
4,221
Median Income
$43,991
Median Home Value
$190,600
Median Age
47.3
Poverty Rate
10.2%
Labor force participation
50.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
22.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3152.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
251.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2901.5
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
56.1°F
Annual Precipitation
55.5"
Annual Snowfall
2.6"
Schools
Total Schools
10
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Franklin's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
4,172 residents
2021
4,213 residents
2022
4,267 residents
2023
4,323 residents
2024
4,362 residents
2025
4,403 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
82.4%
Carpool
9.7%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
5.3%
Other
1.3%
Based on 1,787 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
North Carolina statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $215
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across North Carolina at $215 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are North Carolina statewide averages, not a meter reading for Franklin. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
North Carolina's BEA cost-of-living index is 94.3 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Franklin is $1,161/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to North Carolina statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 66.7 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a North Carolina statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Franklin sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Franklin compares to similar-size North Carolina 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.