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Place dossier plate
SheetWI-BROOKFIELD-WI · Brookfield, WI 41,592 pop · income 88th 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 Brookfield
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Brookfield on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Beloit · lowest
59,975
Beloit · lowest
59,975 median HH income
48.3% of the leader · rank #1
Valley · near
124,000
Valley · near
124,000 median HH income
99.9% of the leader · rank #2
West Loch Est… · near
124,009
West Loch Est… · near
124,009 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #3
Brookfield · this city
124,026
Brookfield · this city
124,026 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #4
East Moriches · near
124,028
East Moriches · near
124,028 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #5
Kettering · near
124,036
Kettering · near
124,036 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #6
Princeton Mea… · highest
124,065
Princeton Mea… · highest
124,065 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 Brookfield 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: 41,592.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Brookfield - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Brookfield places in the 88th percentile for household income and the 57th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
88th
percentile, household income
79th
percentile, home value
29th
percentile, median rent
57th
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: Brookfield, WI
41,592 people live in Brookfield, Wisconsin - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Brookfield brings in $124,026 a year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 2.7%. Typical homes in Brookfield are valued around $419,300, and the median resident age is 43.6 years. 62.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 60.6% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 246 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 547% from five years earlier. Brookfield reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1180.4 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Wisconsin run below the national norm: the state registers 94.1 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,097 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Wisconsin's average monthly utility costs around $225 (state average). Natural-hazard exposure scores 59.1 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Brookfield'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 population change to work and mobility to reported crime to schools and households to comparison shortlist to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Brookfield, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, 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. Population change
Is Brookfield 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 declined by -31 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.1% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 246 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
What does the journey to work look like in Brookfield?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. Remote work has a visible role in the local pattern. That can reduce commute exposure for some workers, but it says nothing about job availability or broadband quality; read it alongside income and housing rather than as a stand-alone lifestyle score.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 74.1%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Brookfield?
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 1180.4 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 48% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Which cities make useful reference points for Brookfield?
Within Wisconsin, the closest population matches are New Berlin (40,384 residents, $97,414 income); Wausau (39,893 residents, $61,877 income); Menomonee Falls (38,963 residents, $98,460 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fitchburg, MA (41,633 residents); Coram, NY (41,527 residents); Marion, IA (41,690 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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Brookfield?
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 62.8% 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.
Matched public schools
8
Bachelor's degree+
62.8%
Poverty estimate
2.7%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Brookfield?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.7%, 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.
Household income
$124,026
Home value
$419,300
Value / income
3.4×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
A-
City profile score · Brookfield, WI
81/100
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 A+
62.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income A
$124,026
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate A-
2.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime B+
83 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living B-
94.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Brookfield profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Bachelor's+ share: 93/100 (A+) · 62.8%
Household income: 88/100 (A) · $124,026
Poverty rate: 81/100 (A-) · 2.7%
Violent crime: 75/100 (B+) · 83 /100k
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Where Brookfield sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Brookfield'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 - Brookfield highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Brookfield, WI (this city): home $419,300, crime 1,180/100k
Fitchburg, MA : home $295,500, crime 1,831/100k
Marion, IA : home $230,800, crime 620/100k
Post Falls, ID : home $425,100, crime 794/100k
Belleville, IL : home $131,000, crime 2,344/100k
New Berlin, WI : home $343,500, crime 1,055/100k
Wausau, WI : home $155,900, crime 1,304/100k
Menomonee Falls, WI : home $341,600, crime 596/100k
Fond du Lac, WI : home $161,300, crime 2,491/100k
Greenfield, WI : home $247,800, crime 2,400/100k
Beloit, WI : home $133,500, crime 2,606/100k
How does Brookfield compare to other US cities?
Where Brookfield sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income88% higher than other cities
Home value79% pricier than other cities
Median rent29% pricier than other cities
Safety57% 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 Wisconsin, Brookfield ranks #122 of 202 Wisconsin 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 Brookfield against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Wisconsin only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Wisconsin-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Brookfield near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Brookfield ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Brookfield only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#26 of 753
97th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#28 of 754
96th percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#537 of 761
29th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#20 of 761
97th percentile in Wisconsin
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 Wisconsin only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
88th percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Brookfield's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Brookfield'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 Brookfield's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$419,30021st percentilemore affordable than 21% 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
Brookfield's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.4×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,494 of 15,516
More affordable than 45% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,378 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.4×, Brookfield sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,494 of 15,516 and #1,378 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
$124,026Brookfield, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Brookfield, WI median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Brookfield, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)62.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.6%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
41,592
Median Income
$124,026
Median Home Value
$419,300
Median Age
43.6
Poverty Rate
2.7%
Labor force participation
60.6%
Bachelor's Degree+
62.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1180.4
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
83.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1097.1
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
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Brookfield's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
41,479 residents
2021
41,357 residents
2022
41,083 residents
2023
41,106 residents
2024
41,144 residents
2025
41,448 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
246
housing units authorized
Single-Family
43
detached homes
Multifamily
203
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
5.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
38
27
11
$18.8M
2020
59
23
36
$25.8M
2021
303
18
285
$61.7M
2022
13
13
0
$8.0M
2023
19
19
0
$13.5M
2024
246
43
203
$71.0M
Permit volume increased 547% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
74.1%
Carpool
4.6%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
0.4%
Work from Home
19.4%
Other
1.4%
Based on 20,001 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Wisconsin statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Wisconsin at $225 (electricity about $100 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Wisconsin statewide averages, not a meter reading for Brookfield. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Wisconsin's BEA cost-of-living index is 94.1 (Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Brookfield is $1,097/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Wisconsin statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 59.1 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Wisconsin statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Brookfield sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Brookfield compares to similar-size Wisconsin 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.