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Place dossier plate
SheetWI-WAUPACA-WI · Waupaca, WI 6,314 pop · income 24th 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 Waupaca
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Waupaca on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Tahoka · lowest
52,576
Tahoka · lowest
52,576 median HH income
39.4% of the leader · rank #1
Benton City · near
52,581
Benton City · near
52,581 median HH income
39.4% of the leader · rank #2
Waupaca · this city
52,586
Waupaca · this city
52,586 median HH income
39.4% of the leader · rank #3
Kenton · near
52,589
Kenton · near
52,589 median HH income
39.5% of the leader · rank #4
Rocky Point · near
52,591
Rocky Point · near
52,591 median HH income
39.5% of the leader · rank #5
Branch · near
52,593
Branch · near
52,593 median HH income
39.5% of the leader · rank #6
Elm Grove · highest
133,304
Elm Grove · highest
133,304 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 Waupaca 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: 6,314.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Waupaca - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Waupaca places in the 24th percentile for household income and the 39th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
24th
percentile, household income
36th
percentile, home value
29th
percentile, median rent
39th
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: Waupaca, WI
Waupaca is a small town in Wisconsin, home to 6,314 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. The typical household in Waupaca brings in $52,586 a year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 3.9%. Home values in Waupaca run a median of $177,600, and the median resident age is 42.5 years. 24.8% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 50.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 84 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Building Boom), up 425% from five years earlier. Waupaca reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 1731.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, below the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 44.8°F with 33.8 inches of precipitation per year and 49.3 inches of snowfall.
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. 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 Waupaca'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 schools and households to reported crime to climate and hazard context to housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Waupaca, city-specific coverage includes FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares, local building permits, annual population history, matched public-school count.
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.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Waupaca?
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. 24.8% 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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Waupaca?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1731.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 24% 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.
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 44.8°F, with 33.8 inches of precipitation and 49.3 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Waupaca?
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 Twin Lakes (6,351 residents, $85,800 income); Lake Mills (6,391 residents, $87,039 income); Elm Grove (6,428 residents, $133,304 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Bethel, AK (6,313 residents); Rossford, OH (6,315 residents); Orange City, IA (6,312 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 Waupaca?
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 3.9%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.4×
Home value
$177,600
Household income
$52,586
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Waupaca?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 81.0%. 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.
Drive alone
81.0%
Work from home
11.1%
Public transit
0.1%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 2,541 workers age 16+.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +33 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 84 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
6,319
2025 estimate
6,352
Period change
+0.5%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Near national cost · BEA RPP 2024, Wisconsin average
D
City profile score · Waupaca, WI
46/100
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 B
3.9%
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
24.8%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
362 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$52,586
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Waupaca profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Poverty rate: 72/100 (B) · 3.9%
Cost of living: 68/100 (B-) · 94.1 index
Bachelor's+ share: 48/100 (D) · 24.8%
Violent crime: 25/100 (F) · 362 /100k
Household income: 24/100 (F) · $52,586
Where Waupaca sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Waupaca'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 - Waupaca highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Waupaca, WI (this city): home $177,600, crime 1,732/100k
Bethel, AK : home $354,400, crime 3,901/100k
Orange City, IA : home $245,300, crime 233/100k
Hampstead, MD : home $305,400, crime 978/100k
Lyman, SC : home $239,800, crime 959/100k
Lake Mills, WI : home $282,400, crime 669/100k
Elm Grove, WI : home $468,000, crime 496/100k
Slinger, WI : home $337,700, crime 510/100k
How does Waupaca compare to other US cities?
Here's how Waupaca stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income24% higher than other cities
Home value36% pricier than other cities
Median rent29% pricier than other cities
Safety39% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Wisconsin alone, Waupaca ranks #160 of 202 Wisconsin cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Waupaca 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 Waupaca near the bottom of Wisconsin's cities
Among the 761 Wisconsin cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Waupaca ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Waupaca only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#630 of 753
16th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 761
0th percentile in Wisconsin
Median Home Value
#377 of 754
50th percentile in Wisconsin
Poverty Rate
#453 of 761
40th percentile in Wisconsin
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#311 of 761
59th 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
24th percentile nationally for median household income · 39th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Waupaca's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Waupaca'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 Waupaca's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$177,600Among the most affordablemore affordable than 64% 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
Waupaca'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
#8,471 of 15,516
More affordable than 45% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#6,891 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.4×, Waupaca sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,471 of 15,516 and #6,891 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
$52,586Waupaca, WI median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Waupaca, 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 Waupaca, WI.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)24.8%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.9%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)50.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
6,314
Median Income
$52,586
Median Home Value
$177,600
Median Age
42.5
Poverty Rate
3.9%
Labor force participation
50.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
24.8%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1731.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
362.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1369.6
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
44.8°F
Annual Precipitation
33.8"
Annual Snowfall
49.3"
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
Waupaca's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
6,319 residents
2021
6,286 residents
2022
6,301 residents
2023
6,285 residents
2024
6,253 residents
2025
6,352 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Building Boom
Total Permits (2024)
84
housing units authorized
Single-Family
9
detached homes
Multifamily
75
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
13.3
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2022
16
16
0
$5.3M
2023
9
7
2
$3.3M
2024
84
9
75
$13.3M
Permit volume increased 425% from 2022 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
81.0%
Carpool
5.3%
Public Transit
0.1%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
11.1%
Other
2.5%
Based on 2,541 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 Waupaca. 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 Waupaca 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 Waupaca sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Waupaca 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.