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Place dossier plate
SheetWI-FOND-DU-LAC-WI · Fond du Lac, WI 44,491 pop · income 38th pct · 23 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 Fond du Lac
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Fond du Lac on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Alexandria · lowest
47,357
Alexandria · lowest
47,357 median HH income
38.2% of the leader · rank #1
Avis · near
61,618
Avis · near
61,618 median HH income
49.7% of the leader · rank #2
Tonawanda · near
61,619
Tonawanda · near
61,619 median HH income
49.7% of the leader · rank #3
Fond du Lac · this city
61,620
Fond du Lac · this city
61,620 median HH income
49.7% of the leader · rank #4
Lovell · near
61,620
Lovell · near
61,620 median HH income
49.7% of the leader · rank #5
Hinton · near
61,622
Hinton · near
61,622 median HH income
49.7% of the leader · rank #6
Brookfield · highest
124,026
Brookfield · highest
124,026 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 Fond du Lac 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: 44,491.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Fond du Lac - the verdict
Nationally, Fond du Lac sits in the 38th percentile for household income and the 23rd percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
38th
percentile, household income
31st
percentile, home value
29th
percentile, median rent
23rd
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: Fond du Lac, WI
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 44,491 residents in Fond du Lac, a small city within Wisconsin. Households in Fond du Lac report a median income of $61,620 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 7.0%. Typical homes in Fond du Lac are valued around $161,300, and the median resident age is 37.2 years. About 21.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 61.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 32 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 79% from five years earlier. Crime here tracks close to the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 2490.7 in FBI UCR data, near the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA climate normals record an annual average temperature of 47.0°F with 32.4 inches of precipitation per year.
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). The average commute for Fond du Lac workers runs 18.1 minutes, with 75.9% driving alone and 8.9% working from home. On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 59.1 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Fond du Lac'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 comparison shortlist to reported crime to population change to schools and households to climate and hazard context to within-city variation to work and mobility to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Fond du Lac, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, matched public-school count.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Fond du Lac?
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 Wisconsin, the closest population matches are Brookfield (41,592 residents, $124,026 income); Wauwatosa (47,718 residents, $93,859 income); New Berlin (40,384 residents, $97,414 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Cutler Bay, FL (44,483 residents); Sicklerville, NJ (44,500 residents); Rohnert Park, CA (44,461 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Fond du Lac?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2490.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, near the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 9% 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.
Is Fond du Lac growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -168 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 32 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 23 Census tracts reveal inside Fond du Lac?
PlainCities matches 23 Census tracts to this city.
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.
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 Fond du Lac?
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 17 public schools within the city match. 21.7% 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
7.0%
Bachelor's degree+
21.7%
Matched public schools
17
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
What physical conditions frame life in Fond du Lac?
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 47.0°F, with 32.4 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Wisconsin is 59.1 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)
59.1
Annual precipitation
32.4 in
Mean temperature
47.0°F
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 Fond du Lac?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.9%. The reported mean trip to work is 18.1 minutes.
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
75.9%
Work from home
8.9%
Public transit
0.2%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 21,361 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Fond du Lac?
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 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 7.0%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.6×
Home value
$161,300
Household income
$61,620
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Below median income · poverty 7.0% (Below-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
D
City profile score · Fond du Lac, WI
44/100
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 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.
Poverty rate C-
7.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share F
21.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income F
$61,620
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime F
387 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Fond du Lac profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Poverty rate: 53/100 (C-) · 7.0%
Bachelor's+ share: 39/100 (F) · 21.7%
Household income: 37/100 (F) · $61,620
Violent crime: 23/100 (F) · 387 /100k
Where Fond du Lac sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Fond du Lac'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 - Fond du Lac highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Fond du Lac, WI (this city): home $161,300, crime 2,491/100k
Cutler Bay, FL : home $420,800, crime 1,511/100k
Rohnert Park, CA : home $634,900, crime 1,521/100k
Bremerton, WA : home $409,500, crime 3,249/100k
Alexandria, LA : home $182,800, crime 9,310/100k
Fairfield, OH : home $218,100, crime 1,659/100k
Brookfield, WI : home $419,300, crime 1,180/100k
Wauwatosa, WI : home $307,600, crime 2,689/100k
New Berlin, WI : home $343,500, crime 1,055/100k
Wausau, WI : home $155,900, crime 1,304/100k
Sheboygan, WI : home $165,200, crime 1,715/100k
Menomonee Falls, WI : home $341,600, crime 596/100k
How does Fond du Lac compare to other US cities?
Where Fond du Lac sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income38% higher than other cities
Home value31% pricier than other cities
Median rent29% pricier than other cities
Safety23% 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, Fond du Lac ranks #188 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 Fond du Lac 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 Fond du Lac near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Fond du Lac ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Fond du Lac only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#487 of 753
35th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#457 of 754
39th percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#295 of 761
60th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#374 of 761
50th 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
38th percentile nationally for median household income · 23rd percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Fond du Lac's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Fond du Lac'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 Fond du Lac's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$161,300Among 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
Fond du Lac's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,606 of 15,516
More affordable than 70% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#465 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.6×, Fond du Lac sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,606 of 15,516 and #465 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
$61,620Fond du Lac, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Fond du Lac, 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 Fond du Lac, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)21.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)7.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)61.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
44,491
Median Income
$61,620
Median Home Value
$161,300
Median Age
37.2
Poverty Rate
7.0%
Labor force participation
61.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
21.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2490.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
387.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2103.5
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
47.0°F
Annual Precipitation
32.4"
Annual Snowfall
N/A
Schools
Total Schools
17
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Fond du Lac's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
44,709 residents
2021
44,604 residents
2022
44,464 residents
2023
44,517 residents
2024
44,676 residents
2025
44,541 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
32
housing units authorized
Single-Family
32
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
0.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
149
37
112
$18.0M
2020
26
26
0
$9.8M
2021
103
25
78
$13.8M
2022
31
31
0
$9.8M
2023
25
25
0
$6.4M
2024
32
32
0
$9.9M
Permit volume decreased 79% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
18.1 minutes
Drive Alone
75.9%
Carpool
10.1%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
2.8%
Work from Home
8.9%
Other
2.1%
Based on 21,361 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 Fond du Lac. 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 Fond du Lac 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 Fond du Lac sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Fond du Lac 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, 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.