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Place dossier plate
SheetNJ-BUDD-LAKE-NJ · Budd Lake, NJ 10,106 pop · income 84th pct
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 Budd Lake
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Budd Lake on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Cordele · lowest
31,564
Cordele · lowest
31,564 median HH income
14.3% of the leader · rank #1
St. Libory · near
113,000
St. Libory · near
113,000 median HH income
51.2% of the leader · rank #2
St. Paul · near
113,000
St. Paul · near
113,000 median HH income
51.2% of the leader · rank #3
Budd Lake · this city
113,036
Budd Lake · this city
113,036 median HH income
51.2% of the leader · rank #4
Wekiwa Springs · near
113,067
Wekiwa Springs · near
113,067 median HH income
51.2% of the leader · rank #5
Urbandale · near
113,086
Urbandale · near
113,086 median HH income
51.2% of the leader · rank #6
Corte Madera · highest
220,771
Corte Madera · highest
220,771 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 Budd Lake 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: 10,106.
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Budd Lake lands in the 84th percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
84th
percentile, household income
80th
percentile, home value
94th
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: Budd Lake, NJ
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 10,106 residents in Budd Lake, a small town within New Jersey. Median household income here is $113,036 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 5.7%. Home values in Budd Lake run a median of $437,200, and the median resident age is 36.9 years. Educational attainment runs 47.9% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 72.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The city is served by 3 public schools according to NCES Common Core of Data.
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. Natural-hazard exposure scores 90.8 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Budd Lake'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 comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Budd Lake, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, 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 Budd Lake?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 47.9% 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 Budd Lake?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.7%, 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 does the journey to work look like in Budd Lake?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 74.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Which cities make useful reference points for Budd Lake?
Within New Jersey, the closest population matches are Wood-Ridge (10,094 residents, $131,412 income); Waldwick (10,090 residents, $155,526 income); Hillsdale (10,086 residents, $169,862 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cordele, GA (10,107 residents); Paris, KY (10,107 residents); Pike Road, AL (10,103 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.
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.
Household income A-
$113,036
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A-
47.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate C+
5.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
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.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Budd Lake profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 83/100 (A-) · $113,036
Bachelor's+ share: 82/100 (A-) · 47.9%
Poverty rate: 61/100 (C+) · 5.7%
Cost of living: 10/100 (F) · 108.8 index
How does Budd Lake compare to other US cities?
Here's how Budd Lake stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income84% higher than other cities
Home value80% pricier than other cities
Median rent94% 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 Budd Lake 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 Budd Lake near the bottom of New Jersey's cities
Among the 686 New Jersey cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Budd Lake ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Budd Lake only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#282 of 659
57th percentile in New Jersey
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 686
0th percentile in New Jersey
Median Home Value
#284 of 672
58th percentile in New Jersey
Poverty Rate
#203 of 680
70th percentile in New Jersey
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#282 of 686
59th 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
84th percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Budd Lake's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$437,20020th percentilemore affordable than 20% 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
Budd Lake's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,281 of 15,516
More affordable than 34% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,854 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.9×, Budd Lake sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,281 of 15,516 and #1,854 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
$113,036Budd Lake, NJ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Budd Lake, 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 Budd Lake, NJ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)47.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)72.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
10,106
Median Income
$113,036
Median Home Value
$437,200
Median Age
36.9
Poverty Rate
5.7%
Labor force participation
72.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
47.9%
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
74.5%
Carpool
5.9%
Public Transit
0.7%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
18.4%
Based on 5,532 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 Budd Lake. 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 Budd Lake 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 Budd Lake sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Budd Lake 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, 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.