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
SheetNC-GOLDSBORO-NC · Goldsboro, NC 33,448 pop · income 15th pct · 30 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 Goldsboro
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Goldsboro on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Gadsden · lowest
38,699
Gadsden · lowest
38,699 median HH income
27.7% of the leader · rank #1
Hooper Bay · near
47,000
Hooper Bay · near
47,000 median HH income
33.6% of the leader · rank #2
Andrews · near
47,000
Andrews · near
47,000 median HH income
33.6% of the leader · rank #3
Merrill · near
47,000
Merrill · near
47,000 median HH income
33.6% of the leader · rank #4
Goldsboro · this city
47,005
Goldsboro · this city
47,005 median HH income
33.6% of the leader · rank #5
Camp Wood · near
47,008
Camp Wood · near
47,008 median HH income
33.6% of the leader · rank #6
Baldwin · highest
139,840
Baldwin · highest
139,840 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 Goldsboro 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: 33,448.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Goldsboro - the verdict
Goldsboro ranks in the 15th percentile for household income and the 1st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
15th
percentile, household income
35th
percentile, home value
48th
percentile, median rent
1st
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: Goldsboro, NC
33,448 people live in Goldsboro, North Carolina - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Goldsboro brings in $47,005 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.6%. Goldsboro's housing stock carries a median value of $173,700, and the median resident age is 36.7 years. Educational attainment runs 21.4% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 46.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 118 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 188% from five years earlier. Goldsboro's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 6940.0 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). NOAA puts Goldsboro's yearly average temperature at 63.3°F with 52.3 inches of precipitation per year and 2.0 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in North Carolina run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, North Carolina scores 94.3 (Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. 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). Workers in Goldsboro report an average commute of 16.8 minutes, with 78.6% driving alone and 4.1% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 66.7 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Goldsboro'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 climate and hazard context to within-city variation to work and mobility to housing and income to reported crime to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Goldsboro, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Goldsboro?
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 23 public schools within the city match. 21.4% 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 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 63.3°F, with 52.3 inches of precipitation and 2.0 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.
What can 30 Census tracts reveal inside Goldsboro?
PlainCities matches 30 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Goldsboro?
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 Garner (32,543 residents, $77,496 income); Cornelius (32,009 residents, $114,688 income); New Bern (31,563 residents, $56,893 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Ken Caryl, CO (33,407 residents); Petersburg, VA (33,365 residents); Baldwin, NY (33,595 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.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Goldsboro?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 78.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.8 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.
Drive alone
78.6%
Work from home
4.1%
Public transit
1.3%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 14,161 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Goldsboro?
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 3.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.7×
Home value
$173,700
Household income
$47,005
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 Goldsboro?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 6940.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 204% 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
6940.0
Violent rate
1076.4
Property rate
5863.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Is Goldsboro growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +560 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 118 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.
2020 estimate
34,452
2025 estimate
35,012
Period change
+1.6%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, North Carolina average
F
City profile score · Goldsboro, NC
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 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 F
21.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$47,005
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
1,076 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Goldsboro profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 67/100 (B-) · 94.3 index
Bachelor's+ share: 38/100 (F) · 21.4%
Poverty rate: 21/100 (F) · 15.6%
Household income: 16/100 (F) · $47,005
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,076 /100k
Where Goldsboro sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Goldsboro'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 - Goldsboro highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Goldsboro, NC (this city): home $173,700, crime 6,940/100k
Petersburg, VA : home $157,900, crime 3,933/100k
Harker Heights, TX : home $269,000, crime 1,125/100k
Gadsden, AL : home $101,900, crime 3,159/100k
Garner, NC : home $320,300, crime 4,864/100k
Cornelius, NC : home $512,400, crime 1,140/100k
New Bern, NC : home $211,500, crime 1,979/100k
Monroe, NC : home $270,600, crime 3,987/100k
Salisbury, NC : home $215,200, crime 4,948/100k
How does Goldsboro compare to other US cities?
Where Goldsboro sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income15% higher than other cities
Home value35% pricier than other cities
Median rent48% pricier than other cities
Safety1% 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, Goldsboro ranks #187 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 Goldsboro 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 Goldsboro near the bottom of North Carolina's cities
Among the 746 North Carolina cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Goldsboro ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Goldsboro only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#507 of 700
28th percentile in North Carolina
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 746
0th percentile in North Carolina
Median Home Value
#415 of 708
41st percentile in North Carolina
Poverty Rate
#223 of 746
70th percentile in North Carolina
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#380 of 746
49th 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
15th percentile nationally for median household income · 1st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Goldsboro's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Goldsboro'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 Goldsboro's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$173,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 65% 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
Goldsboro's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,705 of 15,516
More affordable than 37% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,685 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.7×, Goldsboro sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,705 of 15,516 and #1,685 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$47,005Goldsboro, NC median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Goldsboro, 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 Goldsboro, NC.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)46.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
33,448
Median Income
$47,005
Median Home Value
$173,700
Median Age
36.7
Poverty Rate
15.6%
Labor force participation
46.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
6940.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1076.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
5863.5
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
63.3°F
Annual Precipitation
52.3"
Annual Snowfall
2.0"
Schools
Total Schools
23
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Goldsboro's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
34,452 residents
2021
34,166 residents
2022
34,134 residents
2023
34,574 residents
2024
34,898 residents
2025
35,012 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
118
housing units authorized
Single-Family
118
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
41
33
8
$9.9M
2020
68
68
0
$12.6M
2021
68
68
0
$15.3M
2022
161
89
72
$46.0M
2023
152
152
0
$42.6M
2024
118
118
0
$29.7M
Permit volume increased 188% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.8 minutes
Drive Alone
78.6%
Carpool
13.2%
Public Transit
1.3%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
4.1%
Other
1.5%
Based on 14,161 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 Goldsboro. 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 Goldsboro 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 Goldsboro sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Goldsboro 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 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.