Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetWI-MONROE-WI · Monroe, WI 10,568 pop · income 47th pct · 8 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 Monroe
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Monroe on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Palatka · lowest
33,628
Palatka · lowest
33,628 median HH income
28.1% of the leader · rank #1
Tehama · near
67,614
Tehama · near
67,614 median HH income
56.4% of the leader · rank #2
Monroe · this city
67,621
Monroe · this city
67,621 median HH income
56.4% of the leader · rank #3
Tipton · near
67,625
Tipton · near
67,625 median HH income
56.4% of the leader · rank #4
Hiawatha · near
67,628
Hiawatha · near
67,628 median HH income
56.4% of the leader · rank #5
Richland Hills · near
67,628
Richland Hills · near
67,628 median HH income
56.4% of the leader · rank #6
Pingree Grove · highest
119,880
Pingree Grove · highest
119,880 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 Monroe 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: 10,568.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Monroe - the verdict
Nationally, Monroe sits in the 47th 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.
47th
percentile, household income
38th
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: Monroe, WI
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 10,568 residents in Monroe, a small town within Wisconsin. Monroe households earn a median of $67,621 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 2.3%. Monroe's housing stock carries a median value of $184,400, and the median resident age is 41.3 years. About 25.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 63.2% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 24 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 500% from five years earlier. Monroe reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1176.1 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Wisconsin run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Wisconsin scores 94.1 (Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. 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. 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 Monroe'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 work and mobility to reported crime to within-city variation to comparison shortlist to housing and income to schools and households to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Monroe, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, matched public-school count, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What does the journey to work look like in Monroe?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 80.1%. 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Monroe?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1176.1 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.
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.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Monroe?
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 Hobart (10,418 residents, $111,918 income); Portage (10,374 residents, $62,785 income); New Richmond (10,334 residents, $87,500 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fairview, TX (10,570 residents); Bellefontaine Neighbors, MO (10,562 residents); Vienna, WV (10,575 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.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Monroe?
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 2.7 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 2.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
2.7×
Home value
$184,400
Household income
$67,621
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
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. 25.2% 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
2.3%
Bachelor's degree+
25.2%
Matched public schools
5
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -52 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -0.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 24 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
10,633
2025 estimate
10,581
Period change
-0.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
B-
City profile score · Monroe, WI
67/100
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.
Violent crime A
29 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate A-
2.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better 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.
Bachelor's+ share D
25.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income D
$67,621
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Monroe profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 89/100 (A) · 29 /100k
Poverty rate: 84/100 (A-) · 2.3%
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 49/100 (D) · 25.2%
Household income: 46/100 (D) · $67,621
Where Monroe sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Monroe'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 - Monroe highlighted among 12 peers.Read the chart values
Monroe, WI (this city): home $184,400, crime 1,176/100k
Fairview, TX : home $544,800, crime 999/100k
Bellefontaine Neighbors, MO : home $92,500, crime 3,693/100k
Vienna, WV : home $155,500, crime 3,463/100k
Pingree Grove, IL : home $298,300, crime 167/100k
Durham, NH : home $451,000, crime 265/100k
Palatka, FL : home $112,300, crime 4,003/100k
Portage, WI : home $187,300, crime 2,095/100k
New Richmond, WI : home $269,000, crime 1,019/100k
DeForest, WI : home $337,500, crime 893/100k
Elkhorn, WI : home $255,300, crime 597/100k
Burlington, WI : home $268,300, crime 1,060/100k
How does Monroe compare to other US cities?
Here's how Monroe stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income47% higher than other cities
Home value38% 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, Monroe ranks #120 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 Monroe 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 Monroe near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Monroe ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Monroe only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#390 of 753
48th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#359 of 754
52nd percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#564 of 761
25th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#301 of 761
60th 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
47th percentile nationally for median household income · 57th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Monroe's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Monroe'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 Monroe's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$184,400Among the most affordablemore affordable than 62% 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
Monroe's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.7×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#5,170 of 15,516
More affordable than 67% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#581 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 2.7×, Monroe sits in the affordable band:
national rank #5,170 of 15,516 and #581 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
$67,621Monroe, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Monroe, 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 Monroe, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)25.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)2.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)63.2%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
10,568
Median Income
$67,621
Median Home Value
$184,400
Median Age
41.3
Poverty Rate
2.3%
Labor force participation
63.2%
Bachelor's Degree+
25.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1176.1
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
28.9
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1147.2
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
5
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Monroe's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
10,633 residents
2021
10,662 residents
2022
10,562 residents
2023
10,582 residents
2024
10,596 residents
2025
10,581 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
24
housing units authorized
Single-Family
4
detached homes
Multifamily
20
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
4
4
0
$1.0M
2020
5
5
0
$1.2M
2021
4
4
0
$1.1M
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
1
1
0
$0.5M
2024
24
4
20
$7.0M
Permit volume increased 500% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
80.1%
Carpool
8.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.7%
Work from Home
9.5%
Based on 5,461 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 Monroe. 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 Monroe 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 Monroe sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Monroe 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.