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Place dossier plate
SheetSD-WATERTOWN-SD · Watertown, SD 22,859 pop · income 39th pct · 8 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 Watertown
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Watertown on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Huron · lowest
51,556
Huron · lowest
51,556 median HH income
22.5% of the leader · rank #1
Abilene · near
62,720
Abilene · near
62,720 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #2
Watertown · this city
62,721
Watertown · this city
62,721 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #3
Belle Plaine · near
62,727
Belle Plaine · near
62,727 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #4
Hildale · near
62,727
Hildale · near
62,727 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #5
Madison Heigh… · near
62,727
Madison Heigh… · near
62,727 median HH income
27.4% of the leader · rank #6
Garden City · highest
228,807
Garden City · highest
228,807 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 Watertown 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: 22,859.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Watertown - the verdict
Watertown ranks in the 39th percentile for household income and the 51st percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
39th
percentile, household income
46th
percentile, home value
13th
percentile, median rent
51st
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: Watertown, SD
22,859 people live in Watertown, South Dakota - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Watertown brings in $62,721 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 6.5%. Watertown's housing stock carries a median value of $212,300, and the median resident age is 39.4 years. About 21.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 66.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 142 residential building permits were authorized in Watertown (Building Boom), up 112% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Watertown reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1328.1 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Watertown's yearly average temperature at 43.7°F with 24.6 inches of precipitation per year.
Living costs in South Dakota run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, South Dakota scores 88.6 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $990 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts South Dakota's average monthly utility costs around $200 (state average). The average commute for Watertown workers runs 13.0 minutes, with 84.2% driving alone and 5.4% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 26.8 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Watertown'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 within-city variation to work and mobility to housing and income to schools and households to reported crime to climate and hazard context to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Watertown, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can 8 Census tracts reveal inside Watertown?
PlainCities matches 8 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 Watertown?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 84.2%. The reported mean trip to work is 13.0 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Watertown?
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 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.5%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Watertown?
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 South Dakota, the closest population matches are Brookings (23,710 residents, $61,979 income); Aberdeen (28,297 residents, $63,715 income); Mitchell (15,637 residents, $56,374 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Winchester, MA (22,862 residents); Garden City, NY (22,866 residents); Corinth, TX (22,868 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 Watertown?
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 9 public schools within the city match. 21.2% 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
6.5%
Bachelor's degree+
21.2%
Matched public schools
9
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Watertown?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1328.1 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 42% 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.
Total reported rate
1328.1
Violent rate
303.2
Property rate
1024.9
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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 43.7°F, with 24.6 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for South Dakota is 26.8 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)
26.8
Annual precipitation
24.6 in
Mean temperature
43.7°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Is Watertown growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,060 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +4.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 142 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
22,676
2025 estimate
23,736
Period change
+4.7%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Below median income · poverty 6.5% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
88.6 (US=100)
Very affordable · BEA RPP 2024, South Dakota average
C-
City profile score · Watertown, SD
51/100
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 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 C
6.5%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$62,721
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
21.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
303 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Watertown profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 91/100 (A+) · 88.6 index
Poverty rate: 56/100 (C) · 6.5%
Household income: 39/100 (F) · $62,721
Bachelor's+ share: 38/100 (F) · 21.2%
Violent crime: 33/100 (F) · 303 /100k
Where Watertown sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Watertown'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 - Watertown highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Watertown, SD (this city): home $212,300, crime 1,328/100k
Winchester, MA : home $1,181,700, crime 400/100k
Corinth, TX : home $351,200, crime 740/100k
Calabasas, CA : home $1,453,900, crime 1,466/100k
Coralville, IA : home $286,000, crime 2,197/100k
Brookings, SD : home $243,600, crime 1,262/100k
Aberdeen, SD : home $205,500, crime 1,678/100k
Mitchell, SD : home $182,000, crime 2,230/100k
Yankton, SD : home $202,300, crime 2,242/100k
Huron, SD : home $164,700, crime 1,805/100k
Pierre, SD : home $219,500, crime 2,496/100k
How does Watertown compare to other US cities?
Watertown measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income39% higher than other cities
Home value46% pricier than other cities
Median rent13% pricier than other cities
Safety51% 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 South Dakota, Watertown ranks #18 of 34 South Dakota 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 Watertown 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 Watertown near the bottom of South Dakota's cities
Among the 303 South Dakota cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Watertown ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Watertown only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#132 of 285
54th percentile in South Dakota
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 303
0th percentile in South Dakota
Median Home Value
#54 of 263
79th percentile in South Dakota
Poverty Rate
#146 of 302
51st percentile in South Dakota
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#132 of 303
56th 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
39th percentile nationally for median household income · 51st percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Watertown's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Watertown'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 Watertown's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$212,300Among the most affordablemore affordable than 54% 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
Watertown's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,514 of 15,516
More affordable than 45% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,384 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.4×, Watertown sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,514 of 15,516 and #1,384 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
$62,721Watertown, SD median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Watertown, 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 Watertown, SD.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.5%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)66.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
22,859
Median Income
$62,721
Median Home Value
$212,300
Median Age
39.4
Poverty Rate
6.5%
Labor force participation
66.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1328.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
303.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1024.9
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
43.7°F
Annual Precipitation
24.6"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
9
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Watertown's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
22,676 residents
2021
22,798 residents
2022
23,038 residents
2023
23,209 residents
2024
23,481 residents
2025
23,736 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
142
housing units authorized
Single-Family
63
detached homes
Multifamily
79
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
6.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
67
39
28
$9.0M
2020
80
44
36
$12.7M
2021
236
38
198
$35.9M
2022
123
111
12
$22.8M
2023
118
105
13
$37.3M
2024
142
63
79
$32.7M
Permit volume increased 112% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
13.0 minutes
Drive Alone
84.2%
Carpool
7.2%
Public Transit
0.6%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
5.4%
Other
1.6%
Based on 12,045 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 Watertown. 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 Watertown 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 Watertown sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Watertown 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, 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.