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Place dossier plate
SheetWA-KETTLE-FALLS-WA · Kettle Falls, WA 1,703 pop · income 19th 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 Kettle Falls
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Kettle Falls on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Oroville · lowest
35,560
Oroville · lowest
35,560 median HH income
24.6% of the leader · rank #1
Kettle Falls · this city
49,750
Kettle Falls · this city
49,750 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #2
Naco · near
49,750
Naco · near
49,750 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #3
Patterson · near
49,750
Patterson · near
49,750 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #4
Nauvoo · near
49,750
Nauvoo · near
49,750 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #5
West Chester · near
49,750
West Chester · near
49,750 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #6
Fall · highest
144,625
Fall · highest
144,625 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 Kettle Falls 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: 1,703.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Kettle Falls - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Kettle Falls places in the 19th percentile for household income and the 56th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
19th
percentile, household income
47th
percentile, home value
70th
percentile, median rent
56th
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: Kettle Falls, WA
Washington's Kettle Falls is a small town, with 1,703 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $49,750 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 6.9%. Typical homes in Kettle Falls are valued around $215,100, and the median resident age is 44.3 years. About 19.6% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 50.1% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 1 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 50% from five years earlier. Kettle Falls reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1202.6 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Washington carries a cost-of-living premium: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Washington scores 107.0 (Above Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,472 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Washington's average monthly utility costs around $188 (state average). FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 70.0 out of 100 (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Kettle Falls'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 work and mobility to schools and households to population change to comparison shortlist to housing and income to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Kettle Falls, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, local building permits, annual population history, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
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.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Kettle Falls?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 89.3%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
What does the education layer cover for Kettle Falls?
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 3 public schools within the city match. 19.6% 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.
Is Kettle Falls growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +21 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +1.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 1 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Kettle Falls?
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 Washington, the closest population matches are Napavine (1,705 residents, $89,063 income); Home (1,718 residents, $87,679 income); Oroville (1,686 residents, $35,560 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Brookston, IN (1,703 residents); Hertford, NC (1,703 residents); Cienegas Terrace, TX (1,703 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Kettle Falls?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 6.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
4.3×
Home value
$215,100
Household income
$49,750
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Kettle Falls?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1202.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 47% 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
1202.6
Violent rate
120.3
Property rate
1082.4
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
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.
Violent crime B-
120 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C-
6.9%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
19.6%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$49,750
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
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.
Kettle Falls profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 66/100 (B-) · 120 /100k
Poverty rate: 53/100 (C-) · 6.9%
Bachelor's+ share: 33/100 (F) · 19.6%
Household income: 20/100 (F) · $49,750
Cost of living: 15/100 (F) · 107.0 index
Where Kettle Falls sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Kettle Falls'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 - Kettle Falls highlighted among 23 peers.Read the chart values
Kettle Falls, WA (this city): home $215,100, crime 1,203/100k
Carrier Mills, IL : home $57,300, crime 1,514/100k
Napavine, WA : home $335,500, crime 1,616/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Kettle Falls compare to other US cities?
Kettle Falls measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income19% higher than other cities
Home value47% pricier than other cities
Median rent70% pricier than other cities
Safety56% 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 Washington, Kettle Falls ranks #46 of 156 Washington 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 Kettle Falls 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 Kettle Falls near the bottom of Washington's cities
Among the 599 Washington cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Kettle Falls ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Kettle Falls only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#517 of 565
8th percentile in Washington
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 599
0th percentile in Washington
Median Home Value
#490 of 565
13th percentile in Washington
Poverty Rate
#257 of 598
57th percentile in Washington
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#404 of 599
32nd 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
19th percentile nationally for median household income · 56th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Kettle Falls's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Kettle Falls'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 Kettle Falls's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$215,100Among the most affordablemore affordable than 53% 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
Kettle Falls's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#11,583 of 15,516
More affordable than 25% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#8,923 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 4.3×, Kettle Falls sits in the moderate band:
national rank #11,583 of 15,516 and #8,923 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$49,750Kettle Falls, WA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Kettle Falls, 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 Kettle Falls, WA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)19.6%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)6.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.1%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
1,703
Median Income
$49,750
Median Home Value
$215,100
Median Age
44.3
Poverty Rate
6.9%
Labor force participation
50.1%
Bachelor's Degree+
19.6%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1202.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
120.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1082.4
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.
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Kettle Falls's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
1,636 residents
2021
1,660 residents
2022
1,659 residents
2023
1,663 residents
2024
1,655 residents
2025
1,657 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
1
housing units authorized
Single-Family
1
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
2
2
0
$0.3M
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
1
1
0
$0.2M
2023
1
1
0
$0.2M
2024
1
1
0
$0.2M
Permit volume decreased 50% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
89.3%
Carpool
3.9%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
3.0%
Work from Home
2.6%
Other
1.2%
Based on 693 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 Kettle Falls. 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 Kettle Falls 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 Kettle Falls sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Kettle Falls 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, 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.