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Place dossier plate
SheetWI-MANITOWOC-WI · Manitowoc, WI 34,553 pop · income 39th pct · 20 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 Manitowoc
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Manitowoc on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Fairborn · lowest
55,966
Fairborn · lowest
55,966 median HH income
28.9% of the leader · rank #1
Taft Heights · near
62,125
Taft Heights · near
62,125 median HH income
32.0% of the leader · rank #2
Roaring Spring · near
62,129
Roaring Spring · near
62,129 median HH income
32.0% of the leader · rank #3
Dumas · near
62,129
Dumas · near
62,129 median HH income
32.0% of the leader · rank #4
Red Hill · near
62,132
Red Hill · near
62,132 median HH income
32.0% of the leader · rank #5
Manitowoc · this city
62,133
Manitowoc · this city
62,133 median HH income
32.0% of the leader · rank #6
Manhattan Bea… · highest
193,904
Manhattan Bea… · highest
193,904 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 Manitowoc 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: 34,553.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Manitowoc - the verdict
Nationally, Manitowoc sits in the 39th 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.
39th
percentile, household income
25th
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: Manitowoc, WI
Wisconsin's Manitowoc is a small city, with 34,553 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. The typical household in Manitowoc brings in $62,133 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.7%. Home values in Manitowoc run a median of $143,900, and the median resident age is 43.1 years. 23.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 57.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 37 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 311% from five years earlier. Manitowoc reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1178.1 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 45.1°F with 31.4 inches of precipitation per year and 34.6 inches of snowfall.
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. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $1,097 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $225 across Wisconsin, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. The average commute for Manitowoc workers runs 16.8 minutes, with 80.6% driving alone and 6.1% working from home. 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 Manitowoc'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 work and mobility to comparison shortlist to reported crime to climate and hazard context to schools and households to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Manitowoc, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, annual population history, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
How far does income reach against housing in Manitowoc?
The home-value-to-income reference is relatively compact: the ACS median home value is 2.3 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.7%, 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. The ratio makes housing the clearest place to start this profile, but a low multiple can coexist with slow demand, older stock, or household-level hardship. Compare the home-value distribution and same-state peer table before treating it as an advantage.
Is Manitowoc 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 grew by +15 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.0% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 37 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Which cities make useful reference points for Manitowoc?
Within Wisconsin, the closest population matches are Franklin (35,751 residents, $108,342 income); Sun Prairie (36,455 residents, $90,521 income); Oak Creek (36,473 residents, $93,120 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Prosper, TX (34,567 residents); Manhattan Beach, CA (34,584 residents); Canton, GA (34,587 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.
What can 20 Census tracts reveal inside Manitowoc?
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.
PlainCities matches 20 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Manitowoc?
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.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 80.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 16.8 minutes.
Public transit
0.9%
Work from home
6.1%
Drive alone
80.6%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 16,081 workers age 16+.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Manitowoc?
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 1178.1 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.
Property rate
969.7
Violent rate
208.4
Total reported rate
1178.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 45.1°F, with 31.4 inches of precipitation and 34.6 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.
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.
Mean temperature
45.1°F
Annual precipitation
31.4 in
FEMA risk index (state avg)
59.1
NOAA Climate Normals and FEMA National Risk Index (state-averaged on PlainCities). Hazard context is not address-level.
What does the education layer cover for Manitowoc?
The NCES join finds 11 public schools within the city match. 23.8% 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
11
Bachelor's degree+
23.8%
Poverty estimate
9.7%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Below median income · poverty 9.7% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
D
City profile score · Manitowoc, WI
47/100
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.
Violent crime D
208 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share D
23.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$62,133
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Manitowoc profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Violent crime: 46/100 (D) · 208 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 45/100 (D) · 23.8%
Poverty rate: 41/100 (D) · 9.7%
Household income: 38/100 (F) · $62,133
Where Manitowoc sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Manitowoc'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 - Manitowoc highlighted among 13 peers.Read the chart values
Manitowoc, WI (this city): home $143,900, crime 1,178/100k
Prosper, TX : home $694,600, crime 1,053/100k
Manhattan Beach, CA : home $2,000,000+, crime 2,683/100k
Canton, GA : home $369,700, crime 930/100k
Fairborn, OH : home $169,600, crime 1,567/100k
McMinnville, OR : home $391,100, crime 1,655/100k
Lewiston, ID : home $290,900, crime 1,504/100k
Franklin, WI : home $343,400, crime 1,258/100k
Sun Prairie, WI : home $339,800, crime 1,594/100k
Oak Creek, WI : home $305,100, crime 1,832/100k
Beloit, WI : home $133,500, crime 2,606/100k
Greenfield, WI : home $247,800, crime 2,400/100k
West Bend, WI : home $244,500, crime 1,409/100k
How does Manitowoc compare to other US cities?
Here's how Manitowoc stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income39% higher than other cities
Home value25% 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, Manitowoc ranks #121 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 Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Manitowoc ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Manitowoc only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#477 of 753
37th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#537 of 754
29th percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#189 of 761
74th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#335 of 761
55th 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
39th percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Manitowoc's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Manitowoc'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 Manitowoc's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$143,900Among the most affordablemore affordable than 75% 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
Manitowoc's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.3×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#3,039 of 15,516
More affordable than 80% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#217 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.3×, Manitowoc sits in the affordable band:
national rank #3,039 of 15,516 and #217 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
$62,133Manitowoc, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Manitowoc, 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 Manitowoc, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)23.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
34,553
Median Income
$62,133
Median Home Value
$143,900
Median Age
43.1
Poverty Rate
9.7%
Labor force participation
57.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
23.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1178.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
208.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
969.7
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
45.1°F
Annual Precipitation
31.4"
Annual Snowfall
34.6"
Schools
Total Schools
11
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Manitowoc's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
34,656 residents
2021
34,733 residents
2022
34,586 residents
2023
34,690 residents
2024
34,773 residents
2025
34,671 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
37
housing units authorized
Single-Family
25
detached homes
Multifamily
12
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
1.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
9
5
4
$1.6M
2020
77
15
62
$9.0M
2021
149
10
139
$19.9M
2022
19
17
2
$6.9M
2023
35
24
11
$10.6M
2024
37
25
12
$12.4M
Permit volume increased 311% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
16.8 minutes
Drive Alone
80.6%
Carpool
7.3%
Public Transit
0.9%
Walk
4.3%
Work from Home
6.1%
Other
0.8%
Based on 16,081 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 Manitowoc. 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 Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Manitowoc 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.