Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetTX-AMARILLO-TX · Amarillo, TX 200,945 pop · income 39th pct · 35 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 Amarillo
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Amarillo on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Birmingham · lowest
44,376
Birmingham · lowest
44,376 median HH income
30.4% of the leader · rank #1
Belvidere · near
62,462
Belvidere · near
62,462 median HH income
42.7% of the leader · rank #2
Hubbard · near
62,468
Hubbard · near
62,468 median HH income
42.7% of the leader · rank #3
Amarillo · this city
62,469
Amarillo · this city
62,469 median HH income
42.7% of the leader · rank #4
Benton Park · near
62,475
Benton Park · near
62,475 median HH income
42.7% of the leader · rank #5
Eustis · near
62,475
Eustis · near
62,475 median HH income
42.7% of the leader · rank #6
Frisco · highest
146,158
Frisco · highest
146,158 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 Amarillo 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: 200,945.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Amarillo - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Amarillo lands in the 39th percentile for household income and the 12th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
39th
percentile, household income
39th
percentile, home value
40th
percentile, median rent
12th
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: Amarillo, TX
Amarillo is a mid-sized U.S. city in Texas, home to 200,945 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $62,469 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 11.7%. Amarillo's housing stock carries a median value of $186,800, and the median resident age is 35.0 years. 25.1% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 62.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 1,214 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 157% from five years earlier. Amarillo's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 3346.2 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 58.7°F with 19.7 inches of precipitation per year and 17.2 inches of snowfall.
Texas tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: the state registers 97.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Near Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,149 per month. Monthly utility costs average around $223 across Texas, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 49.0 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Amarillo'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 population change to housing and income to schools and households to comparison shortlist to reported crime to work and mobility to within-city variation to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Amarillo, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Population change
Is Amarillo growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
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.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +4,581 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +2.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1,214 housing units authorized in 2024. 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 Amarillo?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 11.7%, 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Amarillo?
Within Texas, the closest population matches are McKinney (202,314 residents, $120,273 income); Grand Prairie (198,564 residents, $78,889 income); Frisco (210,238 residents, $146,158 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Oxnard, CA (201,014 residents); Augusta-Richmond County, GA (201,504 residents); Tallahassee, FL (199,696 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 35 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Amarillo?
The NCES join finds 79 public schools within the city match. 25.1% 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.
Matched public schools
79
Bachelor's degree+
25.1%
Poverty estimate
11.7%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Amarillo?
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 3346.2 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 47% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
2655.6
Violent rate
690.5
Total reported rate
3346.2
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Amarillo?
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 78.9%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.4%
Work from home
5.9%
Drive alone
78.9%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 95,401 workers age 16+.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 58.7°F, with 19.7 inches of precipitation and 17.2 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Texas is 49.0 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
58.7°F
Annual precipitation
19.7 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
49.0
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
Below median income · poverty 11.7% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Texas average
F
City profile score · Amarillo, TX
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.
Cost of living C-
97.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share D
25.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$62,469
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
11.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
691 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Amarillo profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 25.1%
Household income: 38/100 (F) · $62,469
Poverty rate: 33/100 (F) · 11.7%
Violent crime: 6/100 (F) · 691 /100k
Where Amarillo sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Amarillo'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 - Amarillo highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Amarillo, TX (this city): home $186,800, crime 3,346/100k
Oxnard, CA : home $617,800, crime 2,474/100k
Birmingham, AL : home $138,600, crime 5,278/100k
Little Rock, AR : home $221,200, crime 6,886/100k
McKinney, TX : home $439,500, crime 933/100k
Grand Prairie, TX : home $272,200, crime 1,822/100k
Frisco, TX : home $595,400, crime 1,104/100k
Brownsville, TX : home $122,400, crime 2,398/100k
Garland, TX : home $248,900, crime 2,221/100k
Killeen, TX : home $196,000, crime 1,910/100k
How does Amarillo compare to other US cities?
Amarillo 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 value39% pricier than other cities
Median rent40% pricier than other cities
Safety12% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Texas and the picture shifts: Amarillo ranks #576 of 624 Texas cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Amarillo against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Texas only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Texas-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Amarillo near the bottom of Texas's cities
Among the 1,663 Texas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Amarillo ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Amarillo only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#789 of 1,520
48th percentile in Texas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,663
0th percentile in Texas
Median Home Value
#610 of 1,505
59th percentile in Texas
Poverty Rate
#661 of 1,663
60th percentile in Texas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#499 of 1,663
70th percentile in Texas
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 Texas only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
39th percentile nationally for median household income · 12th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Amarillo's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Amarillo'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 Amarillo's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$186,800Among the most affordablemore affordable than 61% 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
Amarillo's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,635 of 15,516
More affordable than 57% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#11 of 117
Large cities (200,000–999,999)
At 3.0×, Amarillo sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,635 of 15,516 and #11 of 117large cities (200,000–999,999).
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
$62,469Amarillo, TX median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Amarillo, TX median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Amarillo, TX.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)11.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)62.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
200,945
Median Income
$62,469
Median Home Value
$186,800
Median Age
35.0
Poverty Rate
11.7%
Labor force participation
62.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3346.2
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
690.5
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2655.6
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
58.7°F
Annual Precipitation
19.7"
Annual Snowfall
17.2"
Schools
Total Schools
79
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Amarillo's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
200,549 residents
2021
200,863 residents
2022
201,380 residents
2023
202,585 residents
2024
203,513 residents
2025
205,130 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
1,214
housing units authorized
Single-Family
562
detached homes
Multifamily
652
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
472
446
26
$111.6M
2020
845
560
285
$164.9M
2021
574
542
32
$133.0M
2022
758
678
80
$180.9M
2023
564
497
67
$149.1M
2024
1,214
562
652
$254.9M
Permit volume increased 157% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
78.9%
Carpool
12.1%
Public Transit
0.4%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
5.9%
Other
1.7%
Based on 95,401 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Texas statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $223
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Texas at $223 (electricity about $130 , water and sewer about $48 ).
These are Texas statewide averages, not a meter reading for Amarillo. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Texas's BEA cost-of-living index is 97.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Amarillo is $1,149/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Texas statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.0 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Texas statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Amarillo sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Amarillo compares to similar-size Texas 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.