City safety & data profile

ChesterPA

Chester, PA is a 34K-resident city in Delaware County with a median household income of $41,342.

Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Chester, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Chester has a population larger than 68% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, and a median home value of $83,100.

Data updated 2026-09-04

34K
Population (place)
Top 32%
By size
$41,342
Median income (place)
$83,100
Median home (place)
29%
Poverty rate (place)
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The read on Chester

Chester posts a median household income higher than 2% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks.

Bottom 3%
by median income, US cities

Where Chester income ranks nationally

Median household income vs. every place Areazine profiles (place-level ACS)

$41,342 Bottom 2% higher than 2% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles

Chester $0 $260,000 every profiled place, bucketed by value

Each bar is a $20K-wide band; taller bars hold more places Areazine profiles. 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, American Community Survey (place-level) · 2024 ACS 5-year

Largest cities in PA

Population among 88 PA places with 10,000+ residents and ACS income on Areazine. Tooltip shows the income rank in the same pool.

residents

What this shows Philadelphia is the largest PA city on this list; Franklin Park leads median income.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

Highest median incomes in PA

Median household income among the same 88-city pool. Tooltip shows the population rank.

median

What this shows Franklin Park posts the highest place-level median income in PA; Philadelphia is largest by headcount.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

The quick read

Reading Chester, PA beyond the headline numbers

Chester sits inside Delaware County, Pennsylvania, at roughly 39.85°N, -75.36°W. Population 34,092, $41,342 median household income. Median home value $83,100, median rent $1,091. Poverty rate 29%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.

29% of Chester, PA residents live below the poverty line, placing it in the hardest-hit quarter of reporting cities. Read every median on this page against that: half the households are above it, and a large minority are far below.

Housing is inexpensive against local pay -- the median home in Chester runs about 2.0 years of median household income, in the cheapest quarter of reporting cities.

Remote work covers 9.5% of Chester workers, under the midpoint for reporting cities.

Among the CDC measures on this page, short sleep duration departs furthest from its peer median: 52.6% in Chester, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,852 cities reporting that measure.

9.7% of Chester workers commute by public transit, a larger share than at least three quarters of reporting cities.

Chester's median age is 33.9 years, in the youngest quarter of reporting cities.

Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Chester from FEMA, NOAA, FDA, and CPSC. Economic comparison bars use the unweighted average across tracked Census places with a reported value, not a household-weighted national median.

Population (place)
34,092
Chester · Census Place
Median Income (place)
$41,342
-54% vs avg
Median Home Value (place)
$83,100
-80% vs avg
Median Age (place)
33.9
years · ACS place

10-Year Trends 2013–2024

County-level trend (Delaware County): Chester's own historical series isn't separately published by the Census Bureau, so these year-over-year figures track the surrounding county, not the city alone.

20132024
Population
579K+3%
Median Income
$89,546+40%
Median Home Value
$332,200+42%
Poverty Rate
10.2%-1%
Unemployment
6.8%-25%

Economics

Economics indicators for Chester, PA
IndicatorValue
Median Rent
$1,091/mo
Poverty Rate
29% +134% vs avg
Unemployment 17.6%
Bachelor's Degree+ 14.4%
Work From Home 9.5%
Public Transit 9.7%

Population

White 13.7%
African American 72%
Asian 0.8%
Two or More Ethnicities 2.4%

Health Profile 2 measures

Health Indicators

Short Sleep Duration
52.6%

Preventive Care

Dental Visit 46.4%

What alerts and safety updates affect Chester?

No area-tagged alerts are on record for Chester right now. New federal and counterpart-agency notices still land in the site feed as agencies publish them.

City alert dispatch desk

Sheet PA-CHESTER-PA · Chester

Chester: 23 tagged alerts; lead category Environment Agency flood warning.

  • VOL-ACTIVE 23 on record
  • MIX-LED 35% uk-floods
  • DESK-MIX NOAA
  • NEAR-PEER 16 · El Paso

Tagged alert mix: Chester

Published notices carrying this city slug or location tag

Value

What this shows 23 tagged notices on record for Chester.

Source Areazine publication corpus As of Live tagged feed

Nearest tagged-volume peer: El Paso, TX (16 tagged · Δ7)

Counts reflect published articles tagged to Chester; untagged NOAA county warnings may still appear in the site feed. Browse Pennsylvania state hubs · Methodology

Cities with a similar tagged alert volume 4

Nearest published-notice counts on Areazine (23 tagged here), a feed-density peer set, not an ACS demographic match.

El Paso, TX 16 alerts Phoenix, AZ 15 alerts California, MD 15 alerts Victoria, TX 13 alerts

Read with this city profile

Tracking Safety Alerts in Your Area

How Areazine tags Chester in the CAP feed
All safety guides →

Frequently Asked Questions 5

What is the population of Chester, PA? ▼
Chester, PA has a population of 34,092 people, located in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
What is the median household income in Chester? ▼
The median household income in Chester, PA is $41,342 per year, per the U.S. Census ACS. The poverty rate is 29%.
What is the median home value in Chester? ▼
The median home value in Chester, PA is $83,100. Median rent is $1,091/month.
What are the top health concerns in Chester? ▼
The top health indicators in Chester include Short Sleep Duration (52.6%). Data from CDC PLACES.
What is the median age in Chester? ▼
The median age in Chester, PA is 33.9 years. 14.4% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Nationwide cities with similar poverty or income 8

Two ACS-derived peer sets for Chester, both outside Pennsylvania so the neighborhoods are not the geographic nearby list below.

Similar poverty rate

Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside PA (29% here).

Port Arthur, TX 29% Endicott, NY 29% Cordele, GA 29% West Memphis, AR 29.1%

Similar median income

Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside PA ($41,342 here).

Marrero, LA $41,402 Mountain Home, AR $41,274 Picayune, MS $41,213 Forest Park, GA $41,211

Compare Chester with another city

Pick a second U.S. city to open a side-by-side profile on population, income, health, and hospitals, the same federal datasets as this page.

Quick picks:

Nearby Cities 8

Springfield, PA 23K Drexel Hill, PA 28K Darby, PA 11K Lansdowne, PA 11K Broomall, PA 11K Yeadon, PA 12K Paschall, PA 12K Havertown, PA 50K
All cities in Pennsylvania → Compare Chester vs Springfield → All comparisons → Browse all cities

Using Chester's profile

Use this as a starting research checklist, not a verdict on whether to live here.

  • Check live recalls, weather and hazard alerts scoped to the Chester area before relying on national headlines. Check your area
  • Read the poverty rate alongside the income figure, two places with the same median can have very different realities.
  • Compare Chester against Pennsylvania peers on any ranking lens. Explore Pennsylvania

Population and economics (income, home value, poverty, education) are place-level U.S. Census ACS; health is CDC PLACES; hospital counts reflect facilities in and around the city. County-level trends are labeled when shown.

Data Sources

All data on this page comes from official U.S. government sources. Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates, place geography). Health data from the CDC PLACES program (2023). Hospital ratings from CMS Hospital Compare (2024). Climate data from NOAA. Education data from NCES. Cost of living from Bureau of Economic Analysis. Crime statistics, where referenced on Areazine, originate from the FBI Crime Data Explorer. Housing market figures referenced on Areazine come from HUD Fair Market Rents. Census economics and population are at place geography; some health and hospital indicators are reported at the county level (Delaware County) where that is the smallest published unit.

Every figure on Areazine is published directly from official U.S. government sources, no number is typed in by an editor. City demographic and health figures are compiled directly from U.S. Census (place-level ACS), CDC, and CMS releases, updated quarterly within 30 days of upstream release. County-level trends are labeled when shown. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026.