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Place dossier plate
SheetWA-SUNNYSIDE-WA · Sunnyside, WA 16,329 pop · income 25th 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 Sunnyside
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Sunnyside on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Lady Lake · lowest
47,260
Lady Lake · lowest
47,260 median HH income
25.8% of the leader · rank #1
Sunnyside · this city
53,350
Sunnyside · this city
53,350 median HH income
29.1% of the leader · rank #2
Au Sable Forks · near
53,352
Au Sable Forks · near
53,352 median HH income
29.1% of the leader · rank #3
Vinita Park · near
53,355
Vinita Park · near
53,355 median HH income
29.1% of the leader · rank #4
Watsontown · near
53,355
Watsontown · near
53,355 median HH income
29.1% of the leader · rank #5
Shelby · near
53,357
Shelby · near
53,357 median HH income
29.1% of the leader · rank #6
Stone Ridge · highest
183,211
Stone Ridge · highest
183,211 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 Sunnyside 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: 16,329.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Sunnyside - the verdict
Nationally, Sunnyside sits in the 25th percentile for household income and the 17th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
25th
percentile, household income
45th
percentile, home value
70th
percentile, median rent
17th
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: Sunnyside, WA
16,329 people live in Sunnyside, Washington - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Sunnyside households earn a median of $53,350 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 15.2%. Typical homes in Sunnyside are valued around $207,200, and the median resident age is 27.2 years. Educational attainment runs 9.0% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 55.7% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 29 residential building permits were authorized in Sunnyside (Construction Slowdown), down 57% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Sunnyside's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2866.8 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 49.9°F with 7.7 inches of precipitation per year.
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. 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. 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 Sunnyside'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 population change to reported crime to comparison shortlist to schools and households to work and mobility to climate and hazard context; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Sunnyside, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count.
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. Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Sunnyside?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.9 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.2%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Is Sunnyside growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +30 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.2% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 29 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Sunnyside?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2866.8 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 26% 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Sunnyside?
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 Port Orchard (16,398 residents, $81,472 income); Lynden (16,025 residents, $94,869 income); Washougal (16,945 residents, $100,916 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Mattoon, IL (16,334 residents); Lady Lake, FL (16,337 residents); Stone Ridge, VA (16,340 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Sunnyside?
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 8 public schools within the city match. 9.0% 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.
Poverty estimate
15.2%
Bachelor's degree+
9.0%
Matched public schools
8
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What does the journey to work look like in Sunnyside?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 78.4%. 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. 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
78.4%
Work from home
2.4%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 5,493 workers age 16+.
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 49.9°F, with 7.7 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.
FEMA risk index (state avg)
70.0
Annual precipitation
7.7 in
Mean temperature
49.9°F
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
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 F
277 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$53,350
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.2%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better 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.
Bachelor's+ share F
9.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Sunnyside profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 36/100 (F) · 277 /100k
Household income: 25/100 (F) · $53,350
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.2%
Cost of living: 15/100 (F) · 107.0 index
Bachelor's+ share: 4/100 (F) · 9.0%
Where Sunnyside sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Sunnyside'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 - Sunnyside highlighted among 10 peers.Read the chart values
Sunnyside, WA (this city): home $207,200, crime 2,867/100k
Mattoon, IL : home $96,000, crime 1,731/100k
Chickasha, OK : home $113,200, crime 2,162/100k
River Falls, WI : home $299,800, crime 990/100k
Saraland, AL : home $210,500, crime 1,787/100k
Port Orchard, WA : home $492,000, crime 3,286/100k
Lynden, WA : home $546,400, crime 1,309/100k
Washougal, WA : home $492,100, crime 1,315/100k
Aberdeen, WA : home $225,100, crime 3,345/100k
West Richland, WA : home $404,300, crime 687/100k
How does Sunnyside compare to other US cities?
Sunnyside measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income25% higher than other cities
Home value45% pricier than other cities
Median rent70% pricier than other cities
Safety17% 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, Sunnyside ranks #107 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 Sunnyside 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 Sunnyside near the bottom of Washington's cities
Among the 599 Washington cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Sunnyside ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Sunnyside only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#488 of 565
14th percentile in Washington
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 599
0th percentile in Washington
Median Home Value
#496 of 565
12th percentile in Washington
Poverty Rate
#75 of 598
87th percentile in Washington
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#553 of 599
8th 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
25th percentile nationally for median household income · 17th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Sunnyside's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Sunnyside'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 Sunnyside's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$207,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 55% 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
Sunnyside's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.9×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,342 of 15,516
More affordable than 33% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,873 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.9×, Sunnyside sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,342 of 15,516 and #1,873 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
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
$53,350Sunnyside, WA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Sunnyside, 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 Sunnyside, WA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)9.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.2%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.7%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
16,329
Median Income
$53,350
Median Home Value
$207,200
Median Age
27.2
Poverty Rate
15.2%
Labor force participation
55.7%
Bachelor's Degree+
9.0%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2866.8
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
277.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2589.4
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.
Climate
Avg Temperature
49.9°F
Annual Precipitation
7.7"
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
Sunnyside's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
16,400 residents
2021
16,303 residents
2022
16,175 residents
2023
16,207 residents
2024
16,339 residents
2025
16,430 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
29
housing units authorized
Single-Family
15
detached homes
Multifamily
14
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.8
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
68
66
2
$10.4M
2020
25
23
2
$4.7M
2021
26
13
13
$4.0M
2022
40
38
2
$8.6M
2023
44
29
15
$9.4M
2024
29
15
14
$6.8M
Permit volume decreased 57% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
78.4%
Carpool
17.4%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.2%
Work from Home
2.4%
Other
0.6%
Based on 5,493 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 Sunnyside. 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 Sunnyside 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 Sunnyside sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Sunnyside 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.