City safety & data profile
ClemsonSC
Clemson, SC is a 15K-resident city in Pickens County with a median household income of $49,520.
Pickens County, South Carolina. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Clemson, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Clemson has a population larger than 29% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, and a median home value of $398,400.
Data updated 2026-09-04
- 15K
- Population (place)
- Bottom 30%
- By size
- $49,520
- Median income (place)
- $398,400
- Median home (place)
- 36%
- Poverty rate (place)
The read on Clemson
Clemson posts a median household income higher than 8% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks.
- Bottom 9%
- by median income, US cities
Where Clemson income ranks nationally
Median household income vs. every place Areazine profiles (place-level ACS)
$49,520 Bottom 8% higher than 8% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles
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 SC
Population among 50 SC places with 10,000+ residents and ACS income on Areazine. Tooltip shows the income rank in the same pool.
- Columbia
Columbia, SC
142,416 residents
- Charleston
Charleston, SC
132,609 residents
- North Charle…
North Charleston, SC
108,304 residents
- Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant, SC
81,317 residents
- Rock Hill
Rock Hill, SC
71,548 residents
- Greenville
Greenville, SC
64,579 residents
- Summerville 48,848
Summerville, SC
48,848 residents
- Sumter 40,816
Sumter, SC
40,816 residents
- Goose Creek 40,633
Goose Creek, SC
40,633 residents
- Hilton Head … 40,512
Hilton Head Island, SC
40,512 residents
What this shows Columbia is the largest SC city on this list; Five Forks leads median income.
Highest median incomes in SC
Median household income among the same 50-city pool. Tooltip shows the population rank.
- Five Forks
Five Forks, SC
$141,786 median
- Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant, SC
$124,755 median
- Fort Mill
Fort Mill, SC
$121,823 median
- Bluffton
Bluffton, SC
$111,281 median
- Hilton Head …
Hilton Head Island, SC
$94,657 median
- Charleston
Charleston, SC
$92,414 median
- Goose Creek
Goose Creek, SC
$88,178 median
- Hanahan
Hanahan, SC
$87,984 median
- Lexington
Lexington, SC
$87,126 median
- North Augusta
North Augusta, SC
$86,092 median
What this shows Five Forks posts the highest place-level median income in SC; Columbia is largest by headcount.
The quick read
Reading Clemson, SC beyond the headline numbers
Clemson sits inside Pickens County, South Carolina, at roughly 34.68°N, -82.84°W. Population 15,446, $49,520 median household income. Median home value $398,400, median rent $1,007. Poverty rate 36%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.
36% of Clemson, SC 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.
The median home in Clemson costs around 8.0 times what a median household earns in a year -- the most expensive quarter of reporting cities, and far enough ahead of local pay that ownership is largely closed to median earners.
Remote work covers 9.8% of Clemson workers, under the midpoint for reporting cities.
Among the CDC measures on this page, frequent mental distress departs furthest from its peer median: 20.4% in Clemson, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,759 cities reporting that measure.
3.5% of Clemson workers commute by public transit, a larger share than at least three quarters of reporting cities.
Clemson's median age is 24.8 years, in the youngest quarter of reporting cities.
Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Clemson 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.
10-Year Trends 2013–2024
County-level trend (Pickens County): Clemson'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.
Economics
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Median Rent | |
| Poverty Rate | 36% +190% vs avg |
| Unemployment | 4.5% |
| Bachelor's Degree+ | 59.4% |
| Work From Home | 9.8% |
| Public Transit | 3.5% |
Population
Health Profile 15 measures
Health Indicators
Preventive Care
Other Measures
What alerts and safety updates affect Clemson?
No area-tagged alerts are on record for Clemson right now. New federal and counterpart-agency notices still land in the site feed as agencies publish them.
City alert dispatch desk
Sheet SC-CLEMSON · Clemson
Clemson: no area-tagged alerts on record — state hubs carry the live CAP stream.
- FEED-QUIET No tagged alerts
- LEAD-NONE Feed idle
- DESK-IDLE Awaiting feed
Counts reflect published articles tagged to Clemson; untagged NOAA county warnings may still appear in the site feed. Browse South Carolina state hubs · Methodology
Read with this city profile
Frequently Asked Questions 5
What is the population of Clemson, SC? ▼
What is the median household income in Clemson? ▼
What is the median home value in Clemson? ▼
What are the top health concerns in Clemson? ▼
What is the median age in Clemson? ▼
Nationwide cities with similar poverty or income 8
Two ACS-derived peer sets for Clemson, both outside South Carolina so the neighborhoods are not the geographic nearby list below.
Similar poverty rate
Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside SC (36% here).
Similar median income
Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside SC ($49,520 here).
Compare Clemson 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.
Nearby Cities 8
Using Clemson'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 Clemson 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 Clemson against South Carolina peers on any ranking lens. Explore South Carolina
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 (Pickens 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.