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-HARLINGEN-TX · Harlingen, TX 71,669 pop · income 29th 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 Harlingen
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Harlingen on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Camden · lowest
40,450
Camden · lowest
40,450 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #1
Harlingen · this city
55,891
Harlingen · this city
55,891 median HH income
39.9% of the leader · rank #2
Blairsville · near
55,893
Blairsville · near
55,893 median HH income
39.9% of the leader · rank #3
Garrett · near
55,893
Garrett · near
55,893 median HH income
39.9% of the leader · rank #4
Belding · near
55,895
Belding · near
55,895 median HH income
39.9% of the leader · rank #5
Watervliet · near
55,897
Watervliet · near
55,897 median HH income
39.9% of the leader · rank #6
Leander · highest
140,180
Leander · highest
140,180 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 Harlingen 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: 71,669.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Harlingen - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Harlingen places in the 29th percentile for household income and the 16th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
29th
percentile, household income
20th
percentile, home value
40th
percentile, median rent
16th
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: Harlingen, TX
Harlingen is a small city in Texas, home to 71,669 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Harlingen brings in $55,891 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 19.9%. Home values in Harlingen run a median of $125,700, and the median resident age is 33.2 years. About 21.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 55.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 413 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Rapid Growth), up 27% from five years earlier. Harlingen's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2976.7 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Harlingen's yearly average temperature at 75.6°F with 28.2 inches of precipitation per year and 0.1 inches of snowfall.
Texas tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Texas scores 97.1 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,149 per month statewide. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Texas's average monthly utility costs around $223 (state average). Workers in Harlingen report an average commute of 16.1 minutes, with 78.8% driving alone and 9.1% working from home. 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 Harlingen'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 reported crime to climate and hazard context to work and mobility to comparison shortlist 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 Harlingen, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, local building permits.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Harlingen?
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 34 public schools within the city match. 21.7% 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Harlingen?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2976.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 31% higher 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.
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 75.6°F, with 28.2 inches of precipitation and 0.1 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Harlingen?
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 Texas, the closest population matches are North Richland Hills (70,338 residents, $93,434 income); San Marcos (68,920 residents, $51,030 income); Missouri City (75,234 residents, $96,746 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Poinciana, FL (71,665 residents); Greenville, SC (71,755 residents); Marysville, WA (71,570 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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Harlingen?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 78.8%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.1 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.
Drive alone
78.8%
Work from home
9.1%
Public transit
0.1%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 29,199 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Harlingen?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 19.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.2×
Home value
$125,700
Household income
$55,891
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Harlingen growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +543 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.8% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 413 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
2020 estimate
71,924
2025 estimate
72,467
Period change
+0.8%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Below median income · poverty 19.9% (High poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Texas average
F
City profile score · Harlingen, TX
34/100
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 F
21.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
258 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$55,891
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
19.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Harlingen profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 39/100 (F) · 21.7%
Violent crime: 39/100 (F) · 258 /100k
Household income: 29/100 (F) · $55,891
Poverty rate: 14/100 (F) · 19.9%
Where Harlingen sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Harlingen'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 - Harlingen highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Harlingen, TX (this city): home $125,700, crime 2,977/100k
Greenville, SC : home $453,300, crime 4,113/100k
Marysville, WA : home $521,500, crime 2,187/100k
St. Joseph, MO : home $144,200, crime 4,580/100k
Lake Elsinore, CA : home $505,700, crime 2,027/100k
North Richland Hills, TX : home $324,800, crime 2,456/100k
San Marcos, TX : home $269,700, crime 2,617/100k
Missouri City, TX : home $281,600, crime 1,191/100k
Mansfield, TX : home $380,000, crime 1,475/100k
Leander, TX : home $470,700, crime 1,058/100k
How does Harlingen compare to other US cities?
Harlingen measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income29% higher than other cities
Home value20% pricier than other cities
Median rent40% pricier than other cities
Safety16% 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 Texas, Harlingen ranks #561 of 624 Texas 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 Harlingen 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 Harlingen near the bottom of Texas's cities
Among the 1,663 Texas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Harlingen ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Harlingen only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#975 of 1,520
36th percentile in Texas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,663
0th percentile in Texas
Median Home Value
#939 of 1,505
38th percentile in Texas
Poverty Rate
#325 of 1,663
80th percentile in Texas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#611 of 1,663
63rd 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
29th percentile nationally for median household income · 16th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Harlingen's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Harlingen'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 Harlingen's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$125,700Among the most affordablemore affordable than 80% 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
Harlingen's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#2,702 of 15,516
More affordable than 83% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#11 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 2.2×, Harlingen sits in the affordable band:
national rank #2,702 of 15,516 and #11 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
$55,891Harlingen, TX median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Harlingen, 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 Harlingen, TX.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)19.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
71,669
Median Income
$55,891
Median Home Value
$125,700
Median Age
33.2
Poverty Rate
19.9%
Labor force participation
55.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2976.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
257.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2718.9
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
75.6°F
Annual Precipitation
28.2"
Annual Snowfall
0.1"
Schools
Total Schools
34
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Harlingen's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
71,924 residents
2021
72,058 residents
2022
71,865 residents
2023
71,933 residents
2024
72,355 residents
2025
72,467 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
413
housing units authorized
Single-Family
239
detached homes
Multifamily
174
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
5.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
325
187
138
$29.9M
2020
309
236
73
$33.6M
2021
84
0
84
$11.0M
2022
296
238
58
$69.3M
2023
247
176
71
$55.0M
2024
413
239
174
$59.7M
Permit volume increased 27% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.1 minutes
Drive Alone
78.8%
Carpool
9.4%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
1.1%
Work from Home
9.1%
Other
1.5%
Based on 29,199 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 Harlingen. 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 Harlingen 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 Harlingen sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Harlingen 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.