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Place dossier plate
SheetNJ-RUTHERFORD-NJ · Rutherford, NJ 18,748 pop · income 92nd 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 Rutherford
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Rutherford on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Thomasville · lowest
48,464
Thomasville · lowest
48,464 median HH income
35.6% of the leader · rank #1
Big Bend · near
136,042
Big Bend · near
136,042 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
Cape St. Clai… · near
136,064
Cape St. Clai… · near
136,064 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #3
Rutherford · this city
136,069
Rutherford · this city
136,069 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #4
Mission Viejo · near
136,071
Mission Viejo · near
136,071 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #5
Peach Lake · near
136,136
Peach Lake · near
136,136 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
Greenwich · highest
136,154
Greenwich · highest
136,154 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 Rutherford 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: 18,748.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Rutherford - the verdict
Rutherford ranks in the 92nd percentile for household income and the 70th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
92nd
percentile, household income
88th
percentile, home value
94th
percentile, median rent
70th
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: Rutherford, NJ
New Jersey's Rutherford is a small town, with 18,748 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Rutherford households earn a median of $136,069 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 4.8%. Typical homes in Rutherford are valued around $580,800, and the median resident age is 40.7 years. Educational attainment runs 58.8% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 65.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 68 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 1033% from five years earlier. Rutherford reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 860.8 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
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. 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. 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 Rutherford'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 comparison shortlist to schools and households to reported crime to housing and income to population change to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Rutherford, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates.
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
Which cities make useful reference points for Rutherford?
Within New Jersey, the closest population matches are Ocean Acres (18,689 residents, $117,739 income); Preakness (18,538 residents, $133,168 income); Dover (18,420 residents, $70,519 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Elizabeth City, NC (18,740 residents); Wisconsin Rapids, WI (18,756 residents); Thomasville, GA (18,720 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.
What does the education layer cover for Rutherford?
The NCES join finds 5 public schools within the city match. 58.8% 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Rutherford?
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 860.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 62% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
How far does income reach against housing in Rutherford?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 4.8%, 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. 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.
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.
Population change
Is Rutherford growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +345 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 68 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+1.8%
2025 estimate
19,132
2020 estimate
18,787
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Rutherford?
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 55.2%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
17.9%
Work from home
20.2%
Drive alone
55.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 10,182 workers age 16+.
Top-decile income · poverty 4.8% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
108.8 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, New Jersey average
B-
City profile score · Rutherford, NJ
68/100
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.
Household income A+
$136,069
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share A+
58.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime A-
57 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate B-
4.8%
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.
Rutherford profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 92/100 (A+) · $136,069
Bachelor's+ share: 91/100 (A+) · 58.8%
Violent crime: 82/100 (A-) · 57 /100k
Poverty rate: 67/100 (B-) · 4.8%
Cost of living: 10/100 (F) · 108.8 index
Where Rutherford sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Rutherford'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 - Rutherford highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Rutherford, NJ (this city): home $580,800, crime 861/100k
Elizabeth City, NC : home $202,100, crime 2,728/100k
Wisconsin Rapids, WI : home $116,600, crime 2,425/100k
Thomasville, GA : home $196,500, crime 3,944/100k
Clive, IA : home $379,000, crime 1,375/100k
Marshfield, WI : home $169,900, crime 1,328/100k
Ottawa, IL : home $144,500, crime 1,683/100k
Dover, NJ : home $347,100, crime 1,093/100k
Point Pleasant, NJ : home $523,400, crime 513/100k
How does Rutherford compare to other US cities?
Here's how Rutherford stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income92% higher than other cities
Home value88% pricier than other cities
Median rent94% pricier than other cities
Safety70% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just New Jersey and the picture shifts: Rutherford ranks #102 of 238 New Jersey cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Rutherford 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 Rutherford near the bottom of New Jersey's cities
Among the 686 New Jersey cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Rutherford ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Rutherford only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#167 of 659
75th percentile in New Jersey
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 686
0th percentile in New Jersey
Median Home Value
#161 of 672
76th percentile in New Jersey
Poverty Rate
#243 of 680
64th percentile in New Jersey
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#171 of 686
75th 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
92nd percentile nationally for median household income · 70th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Rutherford's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Rutherford'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 Rutherford's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$580,80012th percentilemore affordable than 12% 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
Rutherford's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#11,439 of 15,516
More affordable than 26% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#2,196 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.3×, Rutherford sits in the moderate band:
national rank #11,439 of 15,516 and #2,196 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
$136,069Rutherford, NJ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Rutherford, 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 Rutherford, NJ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)58.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)4.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)65.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
18,748
Median Income
$136,069
Median Home Value
$580,800
Median Age
40.7
Poverty Rate
4.8%
Labor force participation
65.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
58.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
860.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
57.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
803.7
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
Rutherford's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
18,787 residents
2021
18,733 residents
2022
18,710 residents
2023
18,974 residents
2024
19,110 residents
2025
19,132 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
68
housing units authorized
Single-Family
12
detached homes
Multifamily
56
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
6
6
0
$2.2M
2020
7
7
0
$1.0M
2021
76
16
60
$4.1M
2022
59
13
46
$3.0M
2023
46
11
35
$2.4M
2024
68
12
56
$2.8M
Permit volume increased 1033% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
55.2%
Carpool
2.5%
Public Transit
17.9%
Walk
1.3%
Work from Home
20.2%
Other
2.9%
Based on 10,182 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 Rutherford. 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 Rutherford 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 Rutherford sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Rutherford 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.