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Place dossier plate
SheetPA-CHAMBERSBURG-PA · Chambersburg, PA 22,051 pop · income 29th pct · 33 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 Chambersburg
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Chambersburg on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
New Castle · lowest
41,478
New Castle · lowest
41,478 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #1
Pottstown · near
56,174
Pottstown · near
56,174 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #2
Sumner · near
56,174
Sumner · near
56,174 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #3
De Pue · near
56,176
De Pue · near
56,176 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #4
Chambersburg · this city
56,177
Chambersburg · this city
56,177 median HH income
46.5% of the leader · rank #5
Paragould · near
56,181
Paragould · near
56,181 median HH income
46.6% of the leader · rank #6
Murrysville · highest
120,685
Murrysville · highest
120,685 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 Chambersburg 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: 22,051.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Chambersburg - the verdict
Chambersburg ranks in the 29th percentile for household income and the 27th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
29th
percentile, household income
42nd
percentile, home value
54th
percentile, median rent
27th
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: Chambersburg, PA
22,051 people live in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Chambersburg households earn a median of $56,177 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 8.1%. Home values in Chambersburg run a median of $196,200, and the median resident age is 41.2 years. About 26.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 56.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 178 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 1171% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 2217.7 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, near the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 52.9°F with 43.5 inches of precipitation per year and 30.8 inches of snowfall.
Pennsylvania tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Pennsylvania at 97.6 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,225 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $260 across Pennsylvania, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Chambersburg workers runs 17.5 minutes, with 76.6% driving alone and 7.1% working from home. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 67.4 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Chambersburg'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 reported crime to within-city variation to work and mobility to schools and households to population change to housing and income to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Chambersburg, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Chambersburg?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2217.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 3% lower 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 can 33 Census tracts reveal inside Chambersburg?
PlainCities matches 33 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.
What does the journey to work look like in Chambersburg?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 76.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 17.5 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Chambersburg?
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 Pennsylvania, the closest population matches are Allison Park (22,108 residents, $108,669 income); New Castle (21,727 residents, $41,478 income); Carlisle (21,335 residents, $59,742 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Hastings, MN (22,050 residents); Langley Park, MD (22,057 residents); Oxford, AL (22,063 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Chambersburg?
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 16 public schools within the city match. 26.7% 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.
Poverty estimate
8.1%
Bachelor's degree+
26.7%
Matched public schools
16
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Is Chambersburg growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,494 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +6.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 178 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.
2020 estimate
21,882
2025 estimate
23,376
Period change
+6.8%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
How far does income reach against housing in Chambersburg?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 8.1%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.5×
Home value
$196,200
Household income
$56,177
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What physical conditions frame life in Chambersburg?
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.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 52.9°F, with 43.5 inches of precipitation and 30.8 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Pennsylvania is 67.4 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
67.4
Annual precipitation
43.5 in
Mean temperature
52.9°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Below median income · poverty 8.1% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.6 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Pennsylvania average
F
City profile score · Chambersburg, PA
38/100
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 C-
26.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Cost of living C-
97.6 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate D
8.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$56,177
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
465 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Chambersburg profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 52/100 (C-) · 26.7%
Cost of living: 50/100 (C-) · 97.6 index
Poverty rate: 47/100 (D) · 8.1%
Household income: 29/100 (F) · $56,177
Violent crime: 18/100 (F) · 465 /100k
Where Chambersburg sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Chambersburg'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 - Chambersburg highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Chambersburg, PA (this city): home $196,200, crime 2,218/100k
Hastings, MN : home $294,100, crime 1,113/100k
Oxford, AL : home $164,700, crime 2,804/100k
East Ridge, TN : home $182,500, crime 2,408/100k
Columbia Heights, MN : home $259,900, crime 2,506/100k
New Castle, PA : home $72,000, crime 1,120/100k
Carlisle, PA : home $212,400, crime 1,314/100k
Murrysville, PA : home $316,400, crime 256/100k
Pottstown, PA : home $172,300, crime 3,842/100k
How does Chambersburg compare to other US cities?
Here's how Chambersburg stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income29% higher than other cities
Home value42% pricier than other cities
Median rent54% pricier than other cities
Safety27% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Pennsylvania and the picture shifts: Chambersburg ranks #353 of 402 Pennsylvania cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Chambersburg against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Pennsylvania only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Pennsylvania-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Chambersburg near the bottom of Pennsylvania's cities
Among the 1,865 Pennsylvania cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Chambersburg ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Chambersburg only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,262 of 1,765
28th percentile in Pennsylvania
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,865
0th percentile in Pennsylvania
Median Home Value
#673 of 1,790
62nd percentile in Pennsylvania
Poverty Rate
#702 of 1,856
62nd percentile in Pennsylvania
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#677 of 1,861
63rd percentile in Pennsylvania
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 Pennsylvania only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
29th percentile nationally for median household income · 27th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Chambersburg's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Chambersburg'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 Chambersburg's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$196,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 58% 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
Chambersburg's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,940 of 15,516
More affordable than 42% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,484 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.5×, Chambersburg sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,940 of 15,516 and #1,484 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
$56,177Chambersburg, PA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Chambersburg, PA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Chambersburg, PA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)26.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)8.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)56.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
22,051
Median Income
$56,177
Median Home Value
$196,200
Median Age
41.2
Poverty Rate
8.1%
Labor force participation
56.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
26.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2217.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
465.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1752.7
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
52.9°F
Annual Precipitation
43.5"
Annual Snowfall
30.8"
Schools
Total Schools
16
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Chambersburg's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
21,882 residents
2021
22,153 residents
2022
22,185 residents
2023
22,313 residents
2024
23,036 residents
2025
23,376 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
178
housing units authorized
Single-Family
174
detached homes
Multifamily
4
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
8.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
14
7
7
$2.7M
2020
37
22
15
$7.8M
2021
44
24
20
$8.9M
2022
32
22
10
$7.1M
2023
365
365
0
$121.8M
2024
178
174
4
$58.7M
Permit volume increased 1171% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
17.5 minutes
Drive Alone
76.6%
Carpool
7.6%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
4.9%
Work from Home
7.1%
Other
3.6%
Based on 9,925 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Pennsylvania statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $260
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Pennsylvania at $260 (electricity about $120 , water and sewer about $52 ).
These are Pennsylvania statewide averages, not a meter reading for Chambersburg. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Pennsylvania's BEA cost-of-living index is 97.6 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Chambersburg is $1,225/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Pennsylvania statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 67.4 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Pennsylvania statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Chambersburg sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Chambersburg compares to similar-size Pennsylvania 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.