Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetNY-HEMPSTEAD-NY · Hempstead, NY 58,569 pop · income 64th pct · 286 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 Hempstead
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Hempstead on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Terre Haute · lowest
41,960
Terre Haute · lowest
41,960 median HH income
30.0% of the leader · rank #1
Smith Island · near
82,443
Smith Island · near
82,443 median HH income
59.0% of the leader · rank #2
Anchor Bay · near
82,448
Anchor Bay · near
82,448 median HH income
59.0% of the leader · rank #3
Waxahachie · near
82,449
Waxahachie · near
82,449 median HH income
59.0% of the leader · rank #4
Cold Springs · near
82,450
Cold Springs · near
82,450 median HH income
59.0% of the leader · rank #5
Hempstead · this city
82,454
Hempstead · this city
82,454 median HH income
59.0% of the leader · rank #6
Levittown · highest
139,696
Levittown · highest
139,696 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 Hempstead 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: 58,569.
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Hempstead lands in the 64th percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
64th
percentile, household income
81st
percentile, home value
78th
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: Hempstead, NY
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 58,569 residents in Hempstead, a small city within New York. Median household income here is $82,454 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 13.0%. Hempstead's housing stock carries a median value of $442,100, and the median resident age is 36.5 years. 20.5% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 60.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 17 residential building permits were authorized in Hempstead (Building Boom), up 70% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data.
New York carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts New York at 107.9 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,579 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $285 across New York, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 30.6 minutes, with 57.7% driving alone and 6.5% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 69.4 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Hempstead'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 population change to schools and households to housing and income to work and mobility to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Hempstead, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, local building permits, 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.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Hempstead?
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 New York, the closest population matches are White Plains (59,818 residents, $115,586 income); Utica (64,440 residents, $51,513 income); Levittown (51,557 residents, $139,696 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Gilroy, CA (58,561 residents); The Hammocks, FL (58,548 residents); Burlington, NC (58,599 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.
Is Hempstead growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +932 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 17 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
What does the education layer cover for Hempstead?
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.
What can 286 Census tracts reveal inside Hempstead?
PlainCities matches 286 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Hempstead?
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 5.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
5.4×
Home value
$442,100
Household income
$82,454
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 Hempstead?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 57.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 30.6 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
57.7%
Work from home
6.5%
Public transit
18.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 27,015 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 13.0% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
107.9 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, New York average
F
City profile score · Hempstead, NY
36/100
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.
Household income C+
$82,454
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
20.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
107.9 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).
Hempstead profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 62/100 (C+) · $82,454
Bachelor's+ share: 36/100 (F) · 20.5%
Poverty rate: 28/100 (F) · 13.0%
Cost of living: 12/100 (F) · 107.9 index
How does Hempstead compare to other US cities?
Here's how Hempstead stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income64% higher than other cities
Home value81% pricier than other cities
Median rent78% 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 Hempstead against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to New York only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
New York-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Hempstead near the bottom of New York's cities
Among the 1,256 New York cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Hempstead ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Hempstead only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#594 of 1,205
51st percentile in New York
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,256
0th percentile in New York
Median Home Value
#367 of 1,202
69th percentile in New York
Poverty Rate
#228 of 1,246
82nd percentile in New York
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#993 of 1,254
21st percentile in New York
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 York only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
64th percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Hempstead's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$442,10019th percentilemore affordable than 19% 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
Hempstead's home-value-to-income ratio: 5.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#13,397 of 15,516
More affordable than 14% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#499 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 5.4×, Hempstead sits in the pressured band:
national rank #13,397 of 15,516 and #499 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$82,454Hempstead, NY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Hempstead, NY median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Hempstead, NY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)20.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
58,569
Median Income
$82,454
Median Home Value
$442,100
Median Age
36.5
Poverty Rate
13.0%
Labor force participation
60.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
20.5%
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
Hempstead's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
58,887 residents
2021
58,778 residents
2022
58,563 residents
2023
58,556 residents
2024
59,805 residents
2025
59,819 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
17
housing units authorized
Single-Family
6
detached homes
Multifamily
11
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
10
6
4
$1.6M
2020
6
6
0
$1.0M
2021
22
10
12
$2.6M
2022
6
6
0
$2.4M
2023
304
10
294
$50.7M
2024
17
6
11
$4.9M
Permit volume increased 70% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
30.6 minutes
Drive Alone
57.7%
Carpool
13.1%
Public Transit
18.6%
Walk
2.3%
Work from Home
6.5%
Other
1.8%
Based on 27,015 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
New York statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $285
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across New York at $285 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $65 ).
These are New York statewide averages, not a meter reading for Hempstead. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
New York's BEA cost-of-living index is 107.9 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Hempstead is $1,579/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to New York statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 69.4 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a New York statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Hempstead sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Hempstead compares to similar-size New York 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.