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Place dossier plate
SheetNJ-ATLANTIC-CITY-NJ · Atlantic City, NJ 38,486 pop · income 5th pct · 74 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 Atlantic City
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Atlantic City on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Flint · lowest
36,194
Flint · lowest
36,194 median HH income
24.5% of the leader · rank #1
Elton · near
36,211
Elton · near
36,211 median HH income
24.5% of the leader · rank #2
Brighton · near
36,219
Brighton · near
36,219 median HH income
24.5% of the leader · rank #3
Atlantic City · this city
36,220
Atlantic City · this city
36,220 median HH income
24.5% of the leader · rank #4
Anna · near
36,238
Anna · near
36,238 median HH income
24.5% of the leader · rank #5
Fair Lawn · highest
147,952
Fair Lawn · highest
147,952 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 Atlantic City 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: 38,486.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Atlantic City - the verdict
Nationally, Atlantic City sits in the 5th percentile for household income and the 1st percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
5th
percentile, household income
40th
percentile, home value
94th
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: Atlantic City, NJ
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 38,486 residents in Atlantic City, a small city within New Jersey. Median household income here is $36,220 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 32.5%. Home values in Atlantic City run a median of $189,600, and the median resident age is 37.8 years. 20.5% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 51.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 57 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 61% from five years earlier. Atlantic City's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 8017.2 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 55.1°F with 46.0 inches of precipitation per year and 17.4 inches of snowfall.
New Jersey carries a cost-of-living premium: the state registers 108.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Above Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $2,132 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in New Jersey run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 22.3 minutes, with 44.8% driving alone and 5.9% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 90.8 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Atlantic City'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 within-city variation to reported crime to schools and households to climate and hazard context to housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Atlantic City, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
Is Atlantic City growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +383 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 57 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.
What can 74 Census tracts reveal inside Atlantic City?
PlainCities matches 74 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Atlantic City?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 8017.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 252% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Atlantic City?
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 New Jersey, the closest population matches are Fort Lee (39,818 residents, $105,535 income); Kearny (40,570 residents, $83,212 income); Fair Lawn (35,153 residents, $147,952 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Phenix City, AL (38,477 residents); Wheeling, IL (38,495 residents); Calexico, CA (38,476 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Atlantic City?
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 11 public schools within the city match. 20.5% 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
32.5%
Bachelor's degree+
20.5%
Matched public schools
11
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What physical conditions frame life in Atlantic City?
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 55.1°F, with 46.0 inches of precipitation and 17.4 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for New Jersey is 90.8 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)
90.8
Annual precipitation
46.0 in
Mean temperature
55.1°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
How far does income reach against housing in Atlantic City?
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 5.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 32.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
5.2×
Home value
$189,600
Household income
$36,220
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Atlantic City?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 44.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 22.3 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
44.8%
Work from home
5.9%
Public transit
20.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 14,737 workers age 16+.
Lowest-decile income · poverty 32.5% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
108.8 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, New Jersey average
F
City profile score · Atlantic City, NJ
8/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living F
108.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Household income F
$36,220
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
32.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
1,780 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Atlantic City profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 36/100 (F) · 20.5%
Cost of living: 10/100 (F) · 108.8 index
Household income: 2/100 (F) · $36,220
Poverty rate: 0/100 (F) · 32.5%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 1,780 /100k
Where Atlantic City sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Atlantic City'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 - Atlantic City highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Atlantic City, NJ (this city): home $189,600, crime 8,017/100k
Phenix City, AL : home $160,000, crime 4,248/100k
Wheeling, IL : home $244,600, crime 969/100k
Calexico, CA : home $281,700, crime 682/100k
Urbana, IL : home $186,300, crime 3,036/100k
Fort Lee, NJ : home $422,200, crime 1,231/100k
Fair Lawn, NJ : home $532,700, crime 981/100k
Garfield, NJ : home $454,300, crime 1,950/100k
How does Atlantic City compare to other US cities?
Where Atlantic City sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income5% higher than other cities
Home value40% pricier than other cities
Median rent94% 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 New Jersey alone, Atlantic City ranks #235 of 238 New Jersey 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 Atlantic City against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to New Jersey only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
New Jersey-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Atlantic City near the bottom of New Jersey's cities
Among the 686 New Jersey cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Atlantic City ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Atlantic City only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#654 of 659
1st percentile in New Jersey
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 686
0th percentile in New Jersey
Median Home Value
#630 of 672
6th percentile in New Jersey
Poverty Rate
#8 of 680
99th percentile in New Jersey
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#598 of 686
13th percentile in New Jersey
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 New Jersey only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
5th percentile nationally for median household income · 1st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Atlantic City's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Atlantic City'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 Atlantic City's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$189,600Among 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
Atlantic City's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,232 of 15,516
More affordable than 15% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,718 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 5.2×, Atlantic City sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,232 of 15,516 and #2,718 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$36,220Atlantic City, NJ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Atlantic City, NJ median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Atlantic City, NJ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)32.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)51.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
38,486
Median Income
$36,220
Median Home Value
$189,600
Median Age
37.8
Poverty Rate
32.5%
Labor force participation
51.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
8017.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
1780.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
6237.0
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
55.1°F
Annual Precipitation
46.0"
Annual Snowfall
17.4"
Schools
Total Schools
11
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Atlantic City's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
38,404 residents
2021
38,436 residents
2022
38,559 residents
2023
38,627 residents
2024
38,850 residents
2025
38,787 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
57
housing units authorized
Single-Family
17
detached homes
Multifamily
40
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
146
6
140
$17.7M
2020
154
7
147
$19.7M
2021
168
8
160
$21.2M
2022
123
8
115
$15.5M
2023
55
13
42
$10.3M
2024
57
17
40
$8.6M
Permit volume decreased 61% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
22.3 minutes
Drive Alone
44.8%
Carpool
8.3%
Public Transit
20.7%
Walk
16.0%
Work from Home
5.9%
Other
4.3%
Based on 14,737 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
New Jersey statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $275
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across New Jersey at $275 (electricity about $120 , water and sewer about $60 ).
These are New Jersey statewide averages, not a meter reading for Atlantic City. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
New Jersey's BEA cost-of-living index is 108.8 (Well Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Atlantic City is $2,132/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to New Jersey statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 90.8 / 100 (Very High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a New Jersey statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Atlantic City sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Atlantic City compares to similar-size New Jersey 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.