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Place dossier plate
SheetNJ-ELMWOOD-PARK-NJ · Elmwood Park, NJ 21,287 pop · income 78th 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 Elmwood Park
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Elmwood Park on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Pleasantville · lowest
52,403
Pleasantville · lowest
52,403 median HH income
36.8% of the leader · rank #1
Old Fig Garden · near
100,833
Old Fig Garden · near
100,833 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #2
Woolsey · near
100,833
Woolsey · near
100,833 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #3
Herscher · near
100,833
Herscher · near
100,833 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #4
Elmwood Park · this city
100,852
Elmwood Park · this city
100,852 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #5
Lansing · near
100,871
Lansing · near
100,871 median HH income
70.9% of the leader · rank #6
Hillsborough · highest
142,275
Hillsborough · highest
142,275 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 Elmwood Park 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: 21,287.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Elmwood Park - the verdict
Elmwood Park ranks in the 78th percentile for household income and the 23rd percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
78th
percentile, household income
82nd
percentile, home value
94th
percentile, median rent
23rd
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: Elmwood Park, NJ
21,287 people live in Elmwood Park, New Jersey - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $100,852 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 7.6%. Typical homes in Elmwood Park are valued around $456,000, and the median resident age is 39.9 years. Educational attainment runs 35.7% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 62.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 0 residential units authorized here in 2024 (No Permits), down 100% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 2467.5 crimes per 100,000 residents, near the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
New Jersey carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts New Jersey at 108.8 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Above Average). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $2,132 per month. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in New Jersey run around $275, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. Commute times here average 25.1 minutes, with 71.7% driving alone and 7.8% working from home, per Census ACS commuting 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 Elmwood Park'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 work and mobility to reported crime to schools and households to comparison shortlist to housing and income to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Elmwood Park, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Elmwood Park?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 71.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 25.1 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 the FBI record say about safety in Elmwood Park?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2467.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 8% 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.
What does the education layer cover for Elmwood Park?
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 5 public schools within the city match. 35.7% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Elmwood Park?
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 Secaucus (21,437 residents, $134,746 income); Lindenwold (21,534 residents, $55,099 income); Parsippany (21,869 residents, $102,152 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Mustang, OK (21,290 residents); Battle Ground, WA (21,293 residents); Geneva, IL (21,299 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Elmwood Park?
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 4.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.5×
Home value
$456,000
Household income
$100,852
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Elmwood Park growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +185 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 0 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.
2020 estimate
21,349
2025 estimate
21,534
Period change
+0.9%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
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 B+
$100,852
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share B-
35.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
7.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime D
221 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger 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.
Elmwood Park profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 77/100 (B+) · $100,852
Bachelor's+ share: 68/100 (B-) · 35.7%
Poverty rate: 49/100 (D) · 7.6%
Violent crime: 45/100 (D) · 221 /100k
Cost of living: 10/100 (F) · 108.8 index
Where Elmwood Park sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Elmwood Park'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 - Elmwood Park highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Elmwood Park, NJ (this city): home $456,000, crime 2,468/100k
Mustang, OK : home $227,800, crime 807/100k
Battle Ground, WA : home $452,000, crime 1,115/100k
Geneva, IL : home $415,800, crime 584/100k
Mukilteo, WA : home $830,000, crime 1,823/100k
Mesquite, NV : home $374,400, crime 1,129/100k
Secaucus, NJ : home $557,800, crime 3,788/100k
Lindenwold, NJ : home $168,300, crime 2,515/100k
Pleasantville, NJ : home $177,700, crime 1,877/100k
Morristown, NJ : home $552,800, crime 1,063/100k
How does Elmwood Park compare to other US cities?
Elmwood Park measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income78% higher than other cities
Home value82% pricier than other cities
Median rent94% pricier than other cities
Safety23% 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, Elmwood Park ranks #204 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 Elmwood Park 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 Elmwood Park near the bottom of New Jersey's cities
Among the 686 New Jersey cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Elmwood Park ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Elmwood Park only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#373 of 659
43rd percentile in New Jersey
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 686
0th percentile in New Jersey
Median Home Value
#254 of 672
62nd percentile in New Jersey
Poverty Rate
#147 of 680
78th percentile in New Jersey
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#412 of 686
40th 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
78th percentile nationally for median household income · 23rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Elmwood Park's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Elmwood Park'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 Elmwood Park's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$456,00018th percentilemore affordable than 18% 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
Elmwood Park's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#12,023 of 15,516
More affordable than 23% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,356 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.5×, Elmwood Park sits in the moderate band:
national rank #12,023 of 15,516 and #2,356 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
$100,852Elmwood Park, NJ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Elmwood Park, 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 Elmwood Park, NJ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)35.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
21,287
Median Income
$100,852
Median Home Value
$456,000
Median Age
39.9
Poverty Rate
7.6%
Labor force participation
62.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
35.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2467.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
221.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2246.1
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.
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Elmwood Park's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
21,349 residents
2021
21,288 residents
2022
21,274 residents
2023
21,384 residents
2024
21,549 residents
2025
21,534 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
Total Permits (2024)
0
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
32
22
10
$4.2M
2020
36
21
15
$4.4M
2021
213
15
198
$27.2M
2022
137
14
123
$11.8M
2023
81
10
71
$7.5M
2024
0
0
0
-
Permit volume decreased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
25.1 minutes
Drive Alone
71.7%
Carpool
7.7%
Public Transit
7.1%
Walk
2.6%
Work from Home
7.8%
Other
3.1%
Based on 10,537 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 Elmwood Park. 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 Elmwood Park 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 Elmwood Park sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Elmwood Park 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, 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.