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Place dossier plate
SheetTX-LUFKIN-TX · Lufkin, TX 34,158 pop · income 30th pct · 21 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 Lufkin
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Lufkin on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Toledo · lowest
56,719
Toledo · lowest
56,719 median HH income
29.7% of the leader · rank #1
Hollyvilla · near
56,719
Hollyvilla · near
56,719 median HH income
29.7% of the leader · rank #2
Buffalo Lake · near
56,719
Buffalo Lake · near
56,719 median HH income
29.7% of the leader · rank #3
Interlaken · near
56,719
Interlaken · near
56,719 median HH income
29.7% of the leader · rank #4
Lufkin · this city
56,722
Lufkin · this city
56,722 median HH income
29.7% of the leader · rank #5
South Riding · highest
190,701
South Riding · highest
190,701 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
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 Lufkin 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: 34,158.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Lufkin - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Lufkin lands in the 30th percentile for household income and the 19th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
30th
percentile, household income
31st
percentile, home value
40th
percentile, median rent
19th
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: Lufkin, TX
Lufkin is a small city in Texas, home to 34,158 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Lufkin households earn a median of $56,722 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 12.3%. Home values in Lufkin run a median of $162,600, and the median resident age is 33.4 years. 21.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 56.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 77 residential building permits were authorized in Lufkin (Rapid Growth), up 38% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 2723.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, near the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 64.7°F with 50.0 inches of precipitation per year and 0.2 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. 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). FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.0 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Lufkin'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 housing and income to population change to work and mobility to within-city variation to reported crime to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Lufkin, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Lufkin?
The NCES join finds 26 public schools within the city match. 21.8% 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 Lufkin?
Within Texas, the closest population matches are Weatherford (33,924 residents, $78,738 income); Cibolo (33,829 residents, $125,230 income); Deer Park (33,823 residents, $95,233 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Dakota Ridge, CO (34,159 residents); Montgomery, MD (34,161 residents); Cooper City, FL (34,166 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Lufkin?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 12.3%, 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.
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 21 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.
Population change
Is Lufkin 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 +228 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 77 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
+0.7%
2025 estimate
34,350
2020 estimate
34,122
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Lufkin?
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 81.0%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
0.3%
Work from home
5.1%
Drive alone
81.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 14,456 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Lufkin?
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 2723.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 19% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
2194.8
Violent rate
529.0
Total reported rate
2723.7
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 64.7°F, with 50.0 inches of precipitation and 0.2 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
64.7°F
Annual precipitation
50.0 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 12.3% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
97.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Texas average
F
City profile score · Lufkin, TX
33/100
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
21.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
12.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$56,722
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
529 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Lufkin profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 53/100 (C-) · 97.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 40/100 (D) · 21.8%
Poverty rate: 31/100 (F) · 12.3%
Household income: 30/100 (F) · $56,722
Violent crime: 14/100 (F) · 529 /100k
Where Lufkin sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Lufkin'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 - Lufkin highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Lufkin, TX (this city): home $162,600, crime 2,724/100k
Panama City, FL : home $243,200, crime 2,838/100k
Weatherford, TX : home $285,000, crime 1,712/100k
Cibolo, TX : home $324,600, crime 994/100k
Deer Park, TX : home $238,900, crime 1,394/100k
Prosper, TX : home $694,600, crime 1,053/100k
Del Rio, TX : home $143,200, crime 1,454/100k
Harker Heights, TX : home $269,000, crime 1,125/100k
How does Lufkin compare to other US cities?
Lufkin measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income30% higher than other cities
Home value31% pricier than other cities
Median rent40% pricier than other cities
Safety19% 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: Lufkin ranks #542 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 Lufkin 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 Lufkin near the bottom of Texas's cities
Among the 1,663 Texas cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Lufkin ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Lufkin only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#948 of 1,520
38th percentile in Texas
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 1,663
0th percentile in Texas
Median Home Value
#731 of 1,505
51st percentile in Texas
Poverty Rate
#630 of 1,663
62nd percentile in Texas
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#605 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
30th percentile nationally for median household income · 19th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Lufkin's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Lufkin'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 Lufkin's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$162,600Among 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
Lufkin's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,949 of 15,516
More affordable than 62% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#722 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.9×, Lufkin sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,949 of 15,516 and #722 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$56,722Lufkin, TX median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Lufkin, 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 Lufkin, TX.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)12.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)56.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
34,158
Median Income
$56,722
Median Home Value
$162,600
Median Age
33.4
Poverty Rate
12.3%
Labor force participation
56.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2723.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
529.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2194.8
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
64.7°F
Annual Precipitation
50.0"
Annual Snowfall
0.2"
Schools
Total Schools
26
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Lufkin's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
34,122 residents
2021
34,216 residents
2022
34,202 residents
2023
34,299 residents
2024
34,347 residents
2025
34,350 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
77
housing units authorized
Single-Family
67
detached homes
Multifamily
10
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
56
56
0
$11.5M
2020
82
82
0
$17.1M
2021
72
72
0
$15.7M
2022
94
88
6
$23.0M
2023
62
50
12
$15.4M
2024
77
67
10
$21.5M
Permit volume increased 38% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
81.0%
Carpool
11.5%
Public Transit
0.3%
Walk
1.6%
Work from Home
5.1%
Based on 14,456 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 Lufkin. 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 Lufkin 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 Lufkin sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Lufkin 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.