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.
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.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Clay on ACS population and median household income
. 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: 485.
485 people call Clay, West Virginia home. Source: Census ACS.
1st
percentile, home value
5th
percentile, median rent
📝 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: Clay, WV
Clay is a small town in West Virginia, home to 485 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Typical homes in Clay are valued around $58,800, and the median resident age is 29.0 years. 8.0% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 13.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 0 residential units authorized here in 2024 (No Permits).
Living costs in West Virginia run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts West Virginia at 89.5 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $945 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $220 across West Virginia, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 49.2 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Clay'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 population change to work and mobility to comparison shortlist 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 Clay, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits, annual population history, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for FBI reported-crime rates; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Is Clay growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -33 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -8.3% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 0 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 77.8%. 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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Clay?
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.
Within West Virginia, the closest population matches are Springfield (485 residents); Boomer (488 residents, $27,875 income); Masontown (490 residents, $50,938 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Carbon Hill, IL (485 residents); Woodland, MI (485 residents); Gordonville, MO (485 residents). These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
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.
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.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Clay?
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 3 public schools within the city match. 8.0% 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
73.3%
Bachelor's degree+
8.0%
Matched public schools
3
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
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 A
89.5 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 F
8.0%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
73.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income N/A
N/A
No ACS median household income on file for this place.
Violent crime N/A
N/A
No FBI UCR violent-crime rate for this place (coverage is incomplete).
Clay profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 87/100 (A) · 89.5 index
Bachelor's+ share: 1/100 (F) · 8.0%
Poverty rate: 0/100 (F) · 73.3%
How does Clay compare to other US cities?
Here's how Clay stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Home value1% pricier than other cities
Median rent5% pricier than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Clay against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to West Virginia only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
West Virginia-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Clay near the bottom of West Virginia's cities
Among the 390 West Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Clay ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Clay only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 390
0th percentile in West Virginia
Median Home Value
#308 of 337
9th percentile in West Virginia
Poverty Rate
#8 of 389
98th percentile in West Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#284 of 390
27th percentile in West Virginia
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 West Virginia only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
How Clay's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$58,800Among the most affordablemore affordable than 99% 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
Income distribution context
Median household income is not available for Clay in the current Census ACS release (common for very small places).
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)8.0%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)73.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)13.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
485
Median Income
N/A
Median Home Value
$58,800
Median Age
29.0
Poverty Rate
73.3%
Labor force participation
13.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
8.0%
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Clay's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
396 residents
2021
388 residents
2022
381 residents
2023
377 residents
2024
371 residents
2025
363 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
Total Permits (2024)
0
housing units authorized
Single-Family
0
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2020
0
0
0
-
2021
0
0
0
-
2022
0
0
0
-
2023
0
0
0
-
2024
0
0
0
-
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
77.8%
Carpool
5.6%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
5.6%
Other
11.0%
Based on 36 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
West Virginia statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $220
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across West Virginia at $220 (electricity about $110 , water and sewer about $38 ).
These are West Virginia statewide averages, not a meter reading for Clay. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
West Virginia's BEA cost-of-living index is 89.5 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Clay is $945/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to West Virginia statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 49.2 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a West Virginia statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Clay sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Clay compares to similar-size West Virginia 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, 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.