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Place dossier plate
SheetWI-GERMANTOWN-WI · Germantown, WI 20,940 pop · income 80th 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 Germantown
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Germantown on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Vicksburg · lowest
42,484
Vicksburg · lowest
42,484 median HH income
30.9% of the leader · rank #1
Big Coppitt K… · near
104,306
Big Coppitt K… · near
104,306 median HH income
75.8% of the leader · rank #2
West Haven · near
104,307
West Haven · near
104,307 median HH income
75.8% of the leader · rank #3
San Diego · near
104,321
San Diego · near
104,321 median HH income
75.8% of the leader · rank #4
Germantown · this city
104,337
Germantown · this city
104,337 median HH income
75.8% of the leader · rank #5
Balm · near
104,347
Balm · near
104,347 median HH income
75.8% of the leader · rank #6
Brushy Creek · highest
137,630
Brushy Creek · highest
137,630 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 Germantown 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: 20,940.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Germantown - the verdict
Nationally, Germantown sits in the 80th percentile for household income and the 57th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
80th
percentile, household income
73rd
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: Germantown, WI
20,940 people live in Germantown, Wisconsin - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $104,337 per year, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 1.6%. Home values in Germantown run a median of $356,700, and the median resident age is 42.3 years. 48.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 68.4% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 39 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Building Boom), up 179% from five years earlier. Germantown reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1182.0 in FBI UCR data, below 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 45.8°F with 34.4 inches of precipitation per year and 54.3 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Wisconsin run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Wisconsin at 94.1 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,097 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Wisconsin run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. 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 Germantown'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 reported crime to climate and hazard context to housing and income to population change to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to schools and households; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Germantown, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, local building permits, annual population history, 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 can the FBI record say about safety in Germantown?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1182.0 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.
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.
What physical conditions frame life in Germantown?
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 45.8°F, with 34.4 inches of precipitation and 54.3 inches of annual snowfall. 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Germantown?
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 3.4 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 1.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Which cities make useful reference points for Germantown?
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 South Milwaukee (20,547 residents, $70,146 income); Pleasant Prairie (21,515 residents, $103,903 income); Howard (20,261 residents, $84,896 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Imperial, CA (20,943 residents); Vicksburg, MS (20,944 residents); St. Andrews, SC (20,953 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.
Population change
Is Germantown growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +134 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 39 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.
2020 estimate
20,916
2025 estimate
21,050
Period change
+0.6%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What does the journey to work look like in Germantown?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 78.3%. 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. 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.
Drive alone
78.3%
Work from home
16.4%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 11,431 workers age 16+.
What does the education layer cover for Germantown?
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 5 public schools within the city match. 48.3% 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
1.6%
Bachelor's degree+
48.3%
Matched public schools
5
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
A-
City profile score · Germantown, WI
80/100
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.
Poverty rate A
1.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share A-
48.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime A-
62 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income B+
$104,337
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
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.
Germantown profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 89/100 (A) · 1.6%
Bachelor's+ share: 82/100 (A-) · 48.3%
Violent crime: 81/100 (A-) · 62 /100k
Household income: 79/100 (B+) · $104,337
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Where Germantown sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Germantown'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 - Germantown highlighted among 9 peers.Read the chart values
Germantown, WI (this city): home $356,700, crime 1,182/100k
Imperial, CA : home $344,700, crime 259/100k
Vicksburg, MS : home $117,000, crime 4,428/100k
Covington, WA : home $590,100, crime 3,285/100k
South Milwaukee, WI : home $216,400, crime 1,457/100k
Pleasant Prairie, WI : home $336,300, crime 1,392/100k
Middleton, WI : home $457,400, crime 998/100k
Watertown, WI : home $211,500, crime 1,238/100k
Fox Crossing, WI : home $228,000, crime 835/100k
How does Germantown compare to other US cities?
Here's how Germantown stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income80% higher than other cities
Home value73% 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.
Zoom in to just Wisconsin and the picture shifts: Germantown ranks #123 of 202 Wisconsin cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Germantown 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 Germantown near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Germantown ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Germantown only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#71 of 753
91st percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#59 of 754
92nd percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#618 of 761
18th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#56 of 761
93rd 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
80th percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Germantown's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Germantown'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 Germantown's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$356,70027th percentilemore affordable than 27% 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
Germantown'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
#8,649 of 15,516
More affordable than 44% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,417 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.4×, Germantown sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,649 of 15,516 and #1,417 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
$104,337Germantown, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Germantown, 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 Germantown, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)48.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)1.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)68.4%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
20,940
Median Income
$104,337
Median Home Value
$356,700
Median Age
42.3
Poverty Rate
1.6%
Labor force participation
68.4%
Bachelor's Degree+
48.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1182.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
61.7
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1120.3
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
45.8°F
Annual Precipitation
34.4"
Annual Snowfall
54.3"
Schools
Total Schools
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Germantown's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
20,916 residents
2021
20,962 residents
2022
20,951 residents
2023
21,005 residents
2024
21,031 residents
2025
21,050 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
39
housing units authorized
Single-Family
33
detached homes
Multifamily
6
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.9
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
14
14
0
$5.8M
2020
49
47
2
$16.7M
2021
75
75
0
$32.9M
2022
41
41
0
$21.3M
2023
41
41
0
$14.1M
2024
39
33
6
$12.7M
Permit volume increased 179% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
78.3%
Carpool
3.6%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.6%
Work from Home
16.4%
Other
1.1%
Based on 11,431 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 Germantown. 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 Germantown 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 Germantown sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Germantown 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.