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Place dossier plate
SheetPA-READING-PA · Reading, PA 94,836 pop · income 13th pct · 107 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 Reading
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Reading on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Erie · lowest
43,397
Erie · lowest
43,397 median HH income
36.7% of the leader · rank #1
New Paris · near
45,592
New Paris · near
45,592 median HH income
38.6% of the leader · rank #2
Conley · near
45,598
Conley · near
45,598 median HH income
38.6% of the leader · rank #3
Reading · this city
45,599
Reading · this city
45,599 median HH income
38.6% of the leader · rank #4
Waverly · near
45,600
Waverly · near
45,600 median HH income
38.6% of the leader · rank #5
Milan · near
45,608
Milan · near
45,608 median HH income
38.6% of the leader · rank #6
Tracy · highest
118,253
Tracy · highest
118,253 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 Reading 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: 94,836.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Reading - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Reading places in the 13th percentile for household income and the 38th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
13th
percentile, household income
13th
percentile, home value
54th
percentile, median rent
38th
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: Reading, PA
94,836 people live in Reading, Pennsylvania - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Reading households earn a median of $45,599 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 23.1%. Home values in Reading run a median of $109,800, and the median resident age is 31.7 years. 11.7% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 54.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 0 residential building permits were authorized in Reading (No Permits), down 100% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Reading reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1771.8 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Reading's yearly average temperature at 53.9°F.
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). Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,225 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Pennsylvania's average monthly utility costs around $260 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 67.4 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Reading'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 within-city variation to climate and hazard context to work and mobility to reported crime 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 Reading, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Reading?
The NCES join finds 32 public schools within the city match. 11.7% 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.
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 Reading?
Within Pennsylvania, the closest population matches are Erie (94,156 residents, $43,397 income); Bethlehem (77,069 residents, $66,443 income); Scranton (76,074 residents, $49,531 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Sandy, UT (94,723 residents); Asheville, NC (94,369 residents); Palm Coast, FL (94,362 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.
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 107 Census tracts to this city.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 53.9°F. 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.
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.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Reading?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 63.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
3.9%
Work from home
5.0%
Drive alone
63.7%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 37,224 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Reading?
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 1771.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 22% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1434.6
Violent rate
337.2
Total reported rate
1771.8
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Reading?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 23.1%, 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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
Household income
$45,599
Home value
$109,800
Value / income
2.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +872 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.
Period change
+0.9%
2025 estimate
95,832
2020 estimate
94,960
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Low income · poverty 23.1% (Highest-decile poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.6 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Pennsylvania average
F
City profile score · Reading, PA
22/100
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.
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.
Violent crime F
337 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$45,599
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
11.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
23.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Reading profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 50/100 (C-) · 97.6 index
Violent crime: 28/100 (F) · 337 /100k
Household income: 14/100 (F) · $45,599
Bachelor's+ share: 11/100 (F) · 11.7%
Poverty rate: 8/100 (F) · 23.1%
Where Reading sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Reading'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 - Reading highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Reading, PA (this city): home $109,800, crime 1,772/100k
Asheville, NC : home $411,000, crime 4,691/100k
Tracy, CA : home $653,900, crime 1,893/100k
Lawrence, KS : home $269,500, crime 2,618/100k
San Marcos, CA : home $792,400, crime 882/100k
Erie, PA : home $108,200, crime 2,305/100k
Bethlehem, PA : home $236,500, crime 1,575/100k
Scranton, PA : home $141,700, crime 1,627/100k
Allentown, PA : home $188,900, crime 1,841/100k
How does Reading compare to other US cities?
Here's how Reading stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income13% higher than other cities
Home value13% pricier than other cities
Median rent54% pricier than other cities
Safety38% 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: Reading ranks #333 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 Reading 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 Reading near the bottom of Pennsylvania's cities
Among the 1,865 Pennsylvania cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Reading ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Reading only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#1,593 of 1,765
10th percentile in Pennsylvania
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,865
0th percentile in Pennsylvania
Median Home Value
#1,396 of 1,790
22nd percentile in Pennsylvania
Poverty Rate
#116 of 1,856
94th percentile in Pennsylvania
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#1,546 of 1,861
16th 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
13th percentile nationally for median household income · 38th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Reading's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Reading'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 Reading's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$109,800Among the most affordablemore affordable than 87% 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
Reading's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#3,527 of 15,516
More affordable than 77% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#25 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.4×, Reading sits in the affordable band:
national rank #3,527 of 15,516 and #25 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
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
$45,599Reading, PA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Reading, 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 Reading, PA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)11.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)23.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)54.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
94,836
Median Income
$45,599
Median Home Value
$109,800
Median Age
31.7
Poverty Rate
23.1%
Labor force participation
54.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
11.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1771.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
337.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1434.6
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
53.9°F
Annual Precipitation
N/A
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
32
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Reading's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
94,960 residents
2021
94,913 residents
2022
94,926 residents
2023
95,205 residents
2024
95,708 residents
2025
95,832 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
2
0
2
$0.1M
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
0
0
0
-
Permit volume decreased 100% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
63.7%
Carpool
15.8%
Public Transit
3.9%
Walk
5.4%
Work from Home
5.0%
Other
6.2%
Based on 37,224 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 Reading. 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 Reading 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 Reading sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Reading 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.