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Place dossier plate
SheetNC-HENDERSON-NC · Henderson, NC 14,922 pop · income 7th pct · 12 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 Henderson
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Henderson on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Yauco zona ur… · lowest
22,777
Yauco zona ur… · lowest
22,777 median HH income
9.1% of the leader · rank #1
Henderson · this city
38,780
Henderson · this city
38,780 median HH income
15.5% of the leader · rank #2
Hatfield · near
38,783
Hatfield · near
38,783 median HH income
15.5% of the leader · rank #3
Inwood · near
38,786
Inwood · near
38,786 median HH income
15.5% of the leader · rank #4
Malden · near
38,786
Malden · near
38,786 median HH income
15.5% of the leader · rank #5
Hohenwald · near
38,791
Hohenwald · near
38,791 median HH income
15.5% of the leader · rank #6
West Universi… · highest
250,001
West Universi… · highest
250,001 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 Henderson 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: 14,922.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Henderson - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Henderson places in the 7th percentile for household income and the 1st percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
7th
percentile, household income
16th
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: Henderson, NC
14,922 people live in Henderson, North Carolina - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Households in Henderson report a median income of $38,780 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 21.6%. Henderson's housing stock carries a median value of $116,800, and the median resident age is 36.6 years. 16.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 54.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Henderson's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 7592.5 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 58.2°F with 48.6 inches of precipitation per year and 1.6 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). 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 Henderson'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 housing and income to work and mobility to within-city variation to comparison shortlist to population change to climate and hazard context to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Henderson, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, annual population history, 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.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Henderson?
The NCES join finds 17 public schools within the city match. 16.2% 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.
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.
How far does income reach against housing in Henderson?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 21.6%, 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.
What can 12 Census tracts reveal inside Henderson?
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 12 Census tracts to this city.
Which cities make useful reference points for Henderson?
Within North Carolina, the closest population matches are Davidson (14,852 residents, $152,969 income); Roanoke Rapids (15,024 residents, $53,981 income); Laurinburg (15,079 residents, $39,258 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fairview, NJ (14,920 residents); Waunakee, WI (14,927 residents); Lake Arbor, MD (14,932 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Henderson?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 79.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.0%
Work from home
8.2%
Drive alone
79.8%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 6,011 workers age 16+.
Is Henderson growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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 -126 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.8% 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.
Period change
-0.8%
2025 estimate
15,013
2020 estimate
15,139
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 58.2°F, with 48.6 inches of precipitation and 1.6 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.
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.
Mean temperature
58.2°F
Annual precipitation
48.6 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
66.7
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Henderson?
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 7592.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 233% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
5800.8
Violent rate
1791.6
Total reported rate
7592.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 21.6% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.3 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, North Carolina average
F
City profile score · Henderson, NC
20/100
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
16.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
21.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$38,780
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
1,792 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Henderson profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 67/100 (B-) · 94.3 index
Bachelor's+ share: 23/100 (F) · 16.2%
Poverty rate: 10/100 (F) · 21.6%
Household income: 5/100 (F) · $38,780
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,792 /100k
Where Henderson sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Henderson'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 - Henderson highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Henderson, NC (this city): home $116,800, crime 7,593/100k
Fairview, NJ : home $512,100, crime 1,103/100k
Waunakee, WI : home $490,300, crime 315/100k
West University Place, TX : home $1,406,600, crime 1,046/100k
Lilburn, GA : home $278,600, crime 2,453/100k
Davidson, NC : home $626,000, crime 488/100k
Roanoke Rapids, NC : home $129,400, crime 4,277/100k
Laurinburg, NC : home $121,500, crime 6,936/100k
Belmont, NC : home $349,700, crime 3,216/100k
Hendersonville, NC : home $282,500, crime 3,322/100k
Reidsville, NC : home $139,000, crime 3,332/100k
How does Henderson compare to other US cities?
Here's how Henderson stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income7% higher than other cities
Home value16% 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.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to North Carolina alone, Henderson ranks #189 of 195 North Carolina cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Henderson 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 Henderson near the bottom of North Carolina's cities
Among the 746 North Carolina cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Henderson ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Henderson only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#596 of 700
15th percentile in North Carolina
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 746
0th percentile in North Carolina
Median Home Value
#577 of 708
18th percentile in North Carolina
Poverty Rate
#129 of 746
83rd percentile in North Carolina
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#502 of 746
33rd 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
7th percentile nationally for median household income · 1st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Henderson's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Henderson'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 Henderson's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$116,800Among 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
Henderson's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#6,751 of 15,516
More affordable than 56% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#921 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.0×, Henderson sits in the moderate band:
national rank #6,751 of 15,516 and #921 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
$38,780Henderson, NC median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Henderson, 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 Henderson, NC.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)16.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)21.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)54.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
14,922
Median Income
$38,780
Median Home Value
$116,800
Median Age
36.6
Poverty Rate
21.6%
Labor force participation
54.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
16.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
7592.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1791.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
5800.8
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
58.2°F
Annual Precipitation
48.6"
Annual Snowfall
1.6"
Schools
Total Schools
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Henderson's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
15,139 residents
2021
14,932 residents
2022
14,933 residents
2023
14,940 residents
2024
15,033 residents
2025
15,013 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
79.8%
Carpool
9.3%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.7%
Work from Home
8.2%
Other
1.0%
Based on 6,011 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 Henderson. 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 Henderson 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 Henderson sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Henderson 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.