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Place dossier plate
SheetNY-NEW-YORK-NY · New York, NY 8,516,202 pop · income 61st pct · 1,115 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 New York
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest New York on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Syracuse · lowest
45,845
Syracuse · lowest
45,845 median HH income
44.2% of the leader · rank #1
Yountville · near
79,696
Yountville · near
79,696 median HH income
76.8% of the leader · rank #2
White Bear La… · near
79,712
White Bear La… · near
79,712 median HH income
76.8% of the leader · rank #3
New York · this city
79,713
New York · this city
79,713 median HH income
76.8% of the leader · rank #4
Taunton · near
79,715
Taunton · near
79,715 median HH income
76.8% of the leader · rank #5
North Pekin · near
79,730
North Pekin · near
79,730 median HH income
76.8% of the leader · rank #6
New Rochelle · highest
103,813
New Rochelle · highest
103,813 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 New York 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: 8,516,202.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
New York - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, New York places in the 61st percentile for household income and the 15th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
61st
percentile, household income
94th
percentile, home value
78th
percentile, median rent
15th
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: New York, NY
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 8,516,202 residents in New York, a major U.S. city within New York. New York households earn a median of $79,713 annually, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 13.6%. New York's housing stock carries a median value of $751,700, and the median resident age is 38.0 years. Educational attainment runs 41.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 58.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 480 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 27% from five years earlier. New York's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 3039.3 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 55.8°F with 49.5 inches of precipitation per year and 29.8 inches of snowfall.
New York carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, New York scores 107.9 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,579 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in New York run around $285, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for New York workers runs 34.5 minutes, with 21.9% driving alone and 15.0% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 69.4 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of New York'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 comparison shortlist to population change to climate and hazard context to reported crime to work and mobility to within-city variation to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For New York, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, local building permits, annual population history, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for New York?
The NCES join finds 355 public schools within the city match. 41.0% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for New York?
Within New York, the closest population matches are Buffalo (276,397 residents, $48,050 income); Rochester (209,720 residents, $46,628 income); Yonkers (209,529 residents, $81,816 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Los Angeles, CA (3,857,897 residents); Chicago, IL (2,707,648 residents); Houston, TX (2,300,419 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.
Is New York growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -166,559 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 480 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What can 1115 Census tracts reveal inside New York?
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.
PlainCities matches 1115 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Climate and hazard context
What physical conditions frame life in New York?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 55.8°F, with 49.5 inches of precipitation and 29.8 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for New York is 69.4 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.
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.
Mean temperature
55.8°F
Annual precipitation
49.5 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
69.4
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What can the FBI record say about safety in New York?
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 3039.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 33% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
2368.3
Violent rate
671.0
Total reported rate
3039.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in New York?
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.
Public transit is the largest reported mode at 45.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 34.5 minutes.
Public transit
45.6%
Work from home
15.0%
Drive alone
21.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 3,954,938 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in New York?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 9.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.6%, 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.
Household income
$79,713
Home value
$751,700
Value / income
9.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Above median income · poverty 13.6% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
107.9 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, New York average
F
City profile score · New York, NY
35/100
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 B+
41.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income C
$79,713
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.6%
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 F
671 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
New York profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 76/100 (B+) · 41.0%
Household income: 59/100 (C) · $79,713
Poverty rate: 25/100 (F) · 13.6%
Cost of living: 12/100 (F) · 107.9 index
Violent crime: 7/100 (F) · 671 /100k
Where New York sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
New York'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 - New York highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
New York, NY (this city): home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
Buffalo, NY : home $152,300, crime 4,516/100k
Rochester, NY : home $120,600, crime 3,872/100k
Yonkers, NY : home $478,000, crime 1,327/100k
Syracuse, NY : home $125,100, crime 5,000/100k
Albany, NY : home $223,000, crime 3,665/100k
New Rochelle, NY : home $667,300, crime 1,239/100k
How does New York compare to other US cities?
Here's how New York stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income61% higher than other cities
Home value94% pricier than other cities
Median rent78% pricier than other cities
Safety15% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at New York, New York ranks #38 of 55 New York cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares New York 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 New York near the bottom of New York's cities
Among the 1,256 New York cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, New York ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares New York only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#636 of 1,205
47th percentile in New York
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,256
0th percentile in New York
Median Home Value
#147 of 1,202
88th percentile in New York
Poverty Rate
#205 of 1,246
83rd percentile in New York
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#467 of 1,254
63rd 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
61st percentile nationally for median household income · 15th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
New York's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
New York'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 New York's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$751,7006th percentilemore affordable than 6% 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
New York's home-value-to-income ratio: 9.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#15,297 of 15,516
More affordable than 1% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8 of 9
Major cities (1 million+)
At 9.4×, New York sits in the pressured band:
national rank #15,297 of 15,516 and #8 of 9major cities (1 million+).
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
$79,713New York, NY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context New York, 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 New York, NY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)41.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
8,516,202
Median Income
$79,713
Median Home Value
$751,700
Median Age
38.0
Poverty Rate
13.6%
Labor force participation
58.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
41.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3039.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
671.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2368.3
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
55.8°F
Annual Precipitation
49.5"
Annual Snowfall
29.8"
Schools
Total Schools
355
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
New York's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
8,751,188 residents
2021
8,447,958 residents
2022
8,362,665 residents
2023
8,433,834 residents
2024
8,596,825 residents
2025
8,584,629 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
480
housing units authorized
Single-Family
108
detached homes
Multifamily
372
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
661
200
461
$119.9M
2020
408
106
302
$70.4M
2021
310
86
224
$54.9M
2022
895
163
732
$175.5M
2023
460
121
339
$98.2M
2024
480
108
372
$99.1M
Permit volume decreased 27% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
34.5 minutes
Drive Alone
21.9%
Carpool
4.3%
Public Transit
45.6%
Walk
9.4%
Work from Home
15.0%
Other
3.8%
Based on 3,954,938 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 New York. 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 New York 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 New York sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How New York 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, 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.