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Place dossier plate
SheetSD-MOUNT-VERNON-SD · Mount Vernon, SD 437 pop · income 33rd 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 Mount Vernon
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Mount Vernon on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Rock Mills · lowest
19,583
Rock Mills · lowest
19,583 median HH income
20.9% of the leader · rank #1
Mount Vernon · this city
58,542
Mount Vernon · this city
58,542 median HH income
62.6% of the leader · rank #2
Eads · near
58,542
Eads · near
58,542 median HH income
62.6% of the leader · rank #3
Mill Shoals · near
58,542
Mill Shoals · near
58,542 median HH income
62.6% of the leader · rank #4
McGraw · near
58,542
McGraw · near
58,542 median HH income
62.6% of the leader · rank #5
Vinton · near
58,542
Vinton · near
58,542 median HH income
62.6% of the leader · rank #6
Blandford · highest
93,500
Blandford · highest
93,500 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 Mount Vernon 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: 437.
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Mount Vernon lands in the 33rd percentile for household income. Source: Census ACS.
33rd
percentile, household income
31st
percentile, home value
13th
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: Mount Vernon, SD
South Dakota's Mount Vernon is a small town, with 437 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Mount Vernon report a median income of $58,542 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.2%. Typical homes in Mount Vernon are valued around $163,100, and the median resident age is 28.9 years. About 19.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 77.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The city is served by 3 public schools according to NCES Common Core of Data.
Living costs in South Dakota run below the national norm: the state registers 88.6 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $990 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $200 across South Dakota, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 26.8 out of 100 (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Mount Vernon'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 population change to housing and income to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Mount Vernon, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, annual population history.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, 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 Mount Vernon?
Within South Dakota, the closest population matches are White (438 residents, $63,125 income); Wilmot (441 residents, $61,563 income); Bowdle (442 residents, $55,875 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Rock Mills, AL (437 residents); Valley Acres, CA (437 residents); Elizabeth, LA (437 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.
What does the education layer cover for Mount Vernon?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 19.7% 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.
Is Mount Vernon growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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 +4 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.9% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
How far does income reach against housing in Mount Vernon?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.8 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.2%, 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. 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.
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 Mount Vernon?
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 83.0%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.0%
Work from home
9.1%
Drive alone
83.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 253 workers age 16+.
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, South Dakota average
C
City profile score · Mount Vernon, SD
58/100
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.
Cost of living A+
88.6 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 B+
3.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
19.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$58,542
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Mount Vernon profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 91/100 (A+) · 88.6 index
Poverty rate: 77/100 (B+) · 3.2%
Bachelor's+ share: 33/100 (F) · 19.7%
Household income: 32/100 (F) · $58,542
How does Mount Vernon compare to other US cities?
Where Mount Vernon sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income33% higher than other cities
Home value31% pricier than other cities
Median rent13% 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 Mount Vernon against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to South Dakota only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
South Dakota-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Mount Vernon near the bottom of South Dakota's cities
Among the 303 South Dakota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Mount Vernon ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Mount Vernon only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#173 of 285
39th percentile in South Dakota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 303
0th percentile in South Dakota
Median Home Value
#95 of 263
64th percentile in South Dakota
Poverty Rate
#204 of 302
32nd percentile in South Dakota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#155 of 303
49th percentile in South Dakota
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 South Dakota only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
33rd percentile nationally for median household income. Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
How Mount Vernon's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$163,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 69% 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
Mount Vernon's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.8×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,510 of 15,516
More affordable than 64% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#4,794 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.8×, Mount Vernon sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,510 of 15,516 and #4,794 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$58,542Mount Vernon, SD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Mount Vernon, SD median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Mount Vernon, SD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)19.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)77.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
437
Median Income
$58,542
Median Home Value
$163,100
Median Age
28.9
Poverty Rate
3.2%
Labor force participation
77.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
19.7%
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Mount Vernon's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
458 residents
2021
460 residents
2022
462 residents
2023
460 residents
2024
462 residents
2025
462 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
83.0%
Carpool
5.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
9.1%
Other
0.8%
Based on 253 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
South Dakota statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $200
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across South Dakota at $200 (electricity about $95 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are South Dakota statewide averages, not a meter reading for Mount Vernon. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
South Dakota's BEA cost-of-living index is 88.6 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Mount Vernon is $990/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to South Dakota statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 26.8 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a South Dakota statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Mount Vernon sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Mount Vernon compares to similar-size South Dakota 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.