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Place dossier plate
SheetNC-JACKSONVILLE-NC · Jacksonville, NC 73,507 pop · income 26th pct · 46 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 Jacksonville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Jacksonville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Bowling Green · lowest
48,419
Bowling Green · lowest
48,419 median HH income
30.7% of the leader · rank #1
Monette · near
54,063
Monette · near
54,063 median HH income
34.2% of the leader · rank #2
Snyder · near
54,067
Snyder · near
54,067 median HH income
34.2% of the leader · rank #3
Buchanan · near
54,068
Buchanan · near
54,068 median HH income
34.2% of the leader · rank #4
Jacksonville · this city
54,069
Jacksonville · this city
54,069 median HH income
34.2% of the leader · rank #5
Hannibal · near
54,071
Hannibal · near
54,071 median HH income
34.2% of the leader · rank #6
Ellicott · highest
157,891
Ellicott · highest
157,891 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
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Jacksonville on ACS population and median household income
. 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: 73,507.
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Jacksonville lands in the 26th percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
26th
percentile, household income
40th
percentile, home value
48th
percentile, median rent
📝 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: Jacksonville, NC
Jacksonville is a small city in North Carolina, home to 73,507 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Jacksonville households earn a median of $54,069 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 10.0%. Typical homes in Jacksonville are valued around $191,700, and the median resident age is 23.3 years. Educational attainment runs 25.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 30.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 80 residential building permits were authorized in Jacksonville (Building Boom), up 233% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data.
Living costs in North Carolina run below the national norm: the state registers 94.3 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,161 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts North Carolina's average monthly utility costs around $215 (state average). Workers in Jacksonville report an average commute of 13.1 minutes, with 55.1% driving alone and 10.8% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 66.7 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Jacksonville'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 population change to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to schools and households to housing and income to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Jacksonville, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history.
No matched row is reported here for FBI reported-crime rates; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Is Jacksonville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -426 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 80 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Jacksonville?
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.
Within North Carolina, the closest population matches are Apex (67,765 residents, $138,442 income); Gastonia (81,632 residents, $60,554 income); Huntersville (62,458 residents, $119,951 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Bowling Green, KY (73,638 residents); New Britain, CT (73,301 residents); Ellicott, MD (73,737 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 does the journey to work look like in Jacksonville?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 55.1%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.1 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.
What can 46 Census tracts reveal inside Jacksonville?
PlainCities matches 46 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Jacksonville?
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 27 public schools within the city match. 25.0% 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.
Poverty estimate
10.0%
Bachelor's degree+
25.0%
Matched public schools
27
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Jacksonville?
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 3.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 10.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.5×
Home value
$191,700
Household income
$54,069
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Below median income · poverty 10.0% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.3 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, North Carolina average
D
City profile score · Jacksonville, NC
44/100
4 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
25.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
10.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$54,069
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Jacksonville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 67/100 (B-) · 94.3 index
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 25.0%
Poverty rate: 40/100 (D) · 10.0%
Household income: 26/100 (F) · $54,069
How does Jacksonville compare to other US cities?
Where Jacksonville sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income26% higher than other cities
Home value40% pricier than other cities
Median rent48% pricier than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Jacksonville 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 Jacksonville near the bottom of North Carolina's cities
Among the 746 North Carolina cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Jacksonville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Jacksonville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#405 of 700
42nd percentile in North Carolina
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 746
0th percentile in North Carolina
Median Home Value
#352 of 708
50th percentile in North Carolina
Poverty Rate
#358 of 746
52nd percentile in North Carolina
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#300 of 746
60th 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
26th percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Jacksonville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$191,700Among 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
Jacksonville's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,164 of 15,516
More affordable than 41% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#224 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 3.5×, Jacksonville sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,164 of 15,516 and #224 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$54,069Jacksonville, NC median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Jacksonville, 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 Jacksonville, NC.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)10.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)30.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
73,507
Median Income
$54,069
Median Home Value
$191,700
Median Age
23.3
Poverty Rate
10.0%
Labor force participation
30.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.0%
Schools
Total Schools
27
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Jacksonville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
73,158 residents
2021
70,395 residents
2022
70,597 residents
2023
71,041 residents
2024
72,656 residents
2025
72,732 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
80
housing units authorized
Single-Family
72
detached homes
Multifamily
8
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
24
12
12
$3.0M
2020
101
17
84
$9.1M
2021
17
17
0
$4.0M
2022
102
26
76
$12.6M
2023
42
42
0
$9.5M
2024
80
72
8
$16.6M
Permit volume increased 233% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.1 minutes
Drive Alone
55.1%
Carpool
17.7%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
14.8%
Work from Home
10.8%
Other
1.4%
Based on 45,456 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 Jacksonville. 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 Jacksonville 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 Jacksonville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Jacksonville 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, 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.