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Place dossier plate
SheetWI-THREE-LAKES-WI · Three Lakes, WI 393 pop · income 25th 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 Three Lakes
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Three Lakes on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Florence · lowest
35,733
Florence · lowest
35,733 median HH income
40.8% of the leader · rank #1
Three Lakes · this city
53,625
Three Lakes · this city
53,625 median HH income
61.3% of the leader · rank #2
Tuntutuliak · near
53,625
Tuntutuliak · near
53,625 median HH income
61.3% of the leader · rank #3
Groveton · near
53,625
Groveton · near
53,625 median HH income
61.3% of the leader · rank #4
Foot of Ten · near
53,625
Foot of Ten · near
53,625 median HH income
61.3% of the leader · rank #5
Burlison · near
53,625
Burlison · near
53,625 median HH income
61.3% of the leader · rank #6
Nichols · highest
87,500
Nichols · highest
87,500 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 Three Lakes 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: 393.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Three Lakes - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Three Lakes lands in the 25th percentile for household income and the 96th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
25th
percentile, household income
38th
percentile, home value
29th
percentile, median rent
96th
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: Three Lakes, WI
393 people live in Three Lakes, Wisconsin - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Three Lakes brings in $53,625 a year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 0.0%. Three Lakes's housing stock carries a median value of $183,700, and the median resident age is 51.6 years. About 41.8% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 60.0% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Three Lakes reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 202.3 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: 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. Monthly utility costs average around $225 across Wisconsin, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Commute times here average 23.6 minutes, with 94.7% driving alone and 5.3% working from home, per Census ACS commuting data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 59.1 out of 100 (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Three Lakes'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 schools and households to housing and income to comparison shortlist to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Three Lakes, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count, commute-mode shares.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Three Lakes?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 94.7%. The reported mean trip to work is 23.6 minutes.
What does the education layer cover for Three Lakes?
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 41.8% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Three Lakes?
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 0.0%, 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Three Lakes?
Within Wisconsin, the closest population matches are Kendall (394 residents, $59,844 income); Florence (391 residents, $35,733 income); Poy Sippi (396 residents, $65,144 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Spaulding, CA (393 residents); Braswell, GA (393 residents); Newington, GA (393 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.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Three Lakes?
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 202.3 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 91% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
80.9
Violent rate
121.4
Total reported rate
202.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 0.0% (Very low poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
94.1 (US=100)
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
C+
City profile score · Three Lakes, WI
64/100
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+
0.0%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share B+
41.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; 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.
Violent crime B-
121 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$53,625
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Three Lakes profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 100/100 (A+) · 0.0%
Bachelor's+ share: 77/100 (B+) · 41.8%
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Violent crime: 65/100 (B-) · 121 /100k
Household income: 25/100 (F) · $53,625
Where Three Lakes sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Three Lakes'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 - Three Lakes highlighted among 22 peers.Read the chart values
Three Lakes, WI (this city): home $183,700, crime 202/100k
Newington, GA : home $112,900, crime 3,030/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Three Lakes compare to other US cities?
Three Lakes measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income25% higher than other cities
Home value38% pricier than other cities
Median rent29% pricier than other cities
Safety96% 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: Three Lakes ranks #6 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 Three Lakes 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 Three Lakes near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Three Lakes ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Three Lakes only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#622 of 753
17th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#362 of 754
52nd percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#671 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#90 of 761
88th 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
25th percentile nationally for median household income · 96th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Three Lakes's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Three Lakes'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 Three Lakes's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$183,700Among 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
Three Lakes'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
#8,679 of 15,516
More affordable than 44% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,034 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.4×, Three Lakes sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,679 of 15,516 and #7,034 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$53,625Three Lakes, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Three Lakes, 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 Three Lakes, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)41.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)0.0%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)60.0%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
393
Median Income
$53,625
Median Home Value
$183,700
Median Age
51.6
Poverty Rate
0.0%
Labor force participation
60.0%
Bachelor's Degree+
41.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
202.3
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
121.4
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
80.9
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
3
Public schools in this city
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
23.6 minutes
Drive Alone
94.7%
Carpool
0.0%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
5.3%
Based on 206 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 Three Lakes. 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 Three Lakes 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 Three Lakes sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Three Lakes 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 ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.