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Place dossier plate
SheetWA-KENNEWICK-WA · Kennewick, WA 84,389 pop · income 53rd pct · 45 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 Kennewick
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Kennewick on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Yakima · lowest
59,228
Yakima · lowest
59,228 median HH income
36.5% of the leader · rank #1
Kennewick · this city
72,867
Kennewick · this city
72,867 median HH income
45.0% of the leader · rank #2
Wrightsboro · near
72,867
Wrightsboro · near
72,867 median HH income
45.0% of the leader · rank #3
Iowa · near
72,868
Iowa · near
72,868 median HH income
45.0% of the leader · rank #4
Freeport · near
72,868
Freeport · near
72,868 median HH income
45.0% of the leader · rank #5
St. George · near
72,870
St. George · near
72,870 median HH income
45.0% of the leader · rank #6
Redmond · highest
162,099
Redmond · highest
162,099 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 Kennewick 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: 84,389.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Kennewick - the verdict
Kennewick ranks in the 53rd percentile for household income and the 8th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
53rd
percentile, household income
71st
percentile, home value
70th
percentile, median rent
8th
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: Kennewick, WA
Kennewick is a small city in Washington, home to 84,389 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $72,867 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 11.1%. Home values in Kennewick run a median of $343,600, and the median resident age is 35.8 years. Educational attainment runs 26.9% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 58.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 581 residential building permits were authorized in Kennewick (Building Boom), up 63% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Kennewick's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR figures show 3828.0 crimes per 100,000 residents, above the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 55.0°F with 7.9 inches of precipitation per year.
Washington carries a cost-of-living premium: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Washington at 107.0 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Above Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,472 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $188 across Washington, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Kennewick workers runs 19.3 minutes, with 75.6% driving alone and 8.5% working from home. Natural-hazard exposure scores 70.0 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Kennewick'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 housing and income to schools and households to population change to reported crime to climate and hazard context to work and mobility to within-city variation to comparison shortlist; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Kennewick, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Kennewick?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 11.1%, 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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
What does the education layer cover for Kennewick?
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 26.9% 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.
What can 45 Census tracts reveal inside Kennewick?
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 45 Census tracts to this city.
Which cities make useful reference points for Kennewick?
Within Washington, the closest population matches are Auburn (85,455 residents, $95,367 income); Pasco (78,446 residents, $81,130 income); Kirkland (91,614 residents, $143,533 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Brooklyn Park, MN (84,349 residents); Newport Beach, CA (84,304 residents); Baytown, TX (84,538 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.
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 Kennewick 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 +4,351 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +5.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 581 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
+5.2%
2025 estimate
88,366
2020 estimate
84,015
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Kennewick?
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 3828.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 68% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
3461.0
Violent rate
367.0
Total reported rate
3828.0
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 55.0°F, with 7.9 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Washington is 70.0 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
55.0°F
Annual precipitation
7.9 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
70.0
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the journey to work look like in Kennewick?
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 75.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 19.3 minutes.
Public transit
1.7%
Work from home
8.5%
Drive alone
75.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 36,834 workers age 16+.
Above median income · poverty 11.1% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
107.0 (US=100)
High cost · BEA RPP 2024, Washington average
F
City profile score · Kennewick, WA
36/100
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.
Bachelor's+ share C-
26.9%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income C-
$72,867
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
11.1%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
367 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living F
107.0 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Kennewick profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 53/100 (C-) · 26.9%
Household income: 52/100 (C-) · $72,867
Poverty rate: 35/100 (F) · 11.1%
Violent crime: 24/100 (F) · 367 /100k
Cost of living: 15/100 (F) · 107.0 index
Where Kennewick sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Kennewick'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 - Kennewick highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Kennewick, WA (this city): home $343,600, crime 3,828/100k
Brooklyn Park, MN : home $313,500, crime 2,770/100k
Newport Beach, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 2,124/100k
Baytown, TX : home $187,900, crime 3,241/100k
Westland, MI : home $176,500, crime 1,805/100k
Farmington Hills, MI : home $333,200, crime 879/100k
Cicero, IL : home $236,000, crime 1,581/100k
Auburn, WA : home $510,400, crime 4,511/100k
Pasco, WA : home $344,700, crime 2,543/100k
Kirkland, WA : home $1,022,500, crime 2,073/100k
Bellingham, WA : home $577,400, crime 4,107/100k
Redmond, WA : home $1,091,700, crime 2,870/100k
Yakima, WA : home $273,400, crime 2,589/100k
How does Kennewick compare to other US cities?
Where Kennewick sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income53% higher than other cities
Home value71% pricier than other cities
Median rent70% pricier than other cities
Safety8% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Washington alone, Kennewick ranks #132 of 156 Washington cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Kennewick against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Washington only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Washington-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Kennewick near the bottom of Washington's cities
Among the 599 Washington cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Kennewick ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Kennewick only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#357 of 565
37th percentile in Washington
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 599
0th percentile in Washington
Median Home Value
#351 of 565
38th percentile in Washington
Poverty Rate
#133 of 598
78th percentile in Washington
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#278 of 599
53rd percentile in Washington
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 Washington only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
53rd percentile nationally for median household income · 8th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Kennewick's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Kennewick'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 Kennewick's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$343,60029th percentilemore affordable than 29% 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
Kennewick's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#12,408 of 15,516
More affordable than 20% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#416 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 4.7×, Kennewick sits in the moderate band:
national rank #12,408 of 15,516 and #416 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
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
$72,867Kennewick, WA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Kennewick, WA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Kennewick, WA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)26.9%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)11.1%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
84,389
Median Income
$72,867
Median Home Value
$343,600
Median Age
35.8
Poverty Rate
11.1%
Labor force participation
58.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
26.9%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3828.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
367.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
3461.0
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
55.0°F
Annual Precipitation
7.9"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Kennewick's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
84,015 residents
2021
84,709 residents
2022
85,227 residents
2023
86,077 residents
2024
87,095 residents
2025
88,366 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
581
housing units authorized
Single-Family
335
detached homes
Multifamily
246
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
6.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
356
345
11
$104.6M
2020
326
298
28
$88.8M
2021
280
278
2
$89.2M
2022
270
212
58
$80.1M
2023
406
307
99
$120.1M
2024
581
335
246
$153.2M
Permit volume increased 63% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
19.3 minutes
Drive Alone
75.6%
Carpool
12.3%
Public Transit
1.7%
Walk
1.0%
Work from Home
8.5%
Other
0.9%
Based on 36,834 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Washington statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $188
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Washington at $188 (electricity about $85 , water and sewer about $55 ).
These are Washington statewide averages, not a meter reading for Kennewick. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Washington's BEA cost-of-living index is 107.0 (Above Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Kennewick is $1,472/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Washington statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 70.0 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Washington statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Kennewick sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Kennewick compares to similar-size Washington 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.