City safety & data profile
WaimaluHI
Waimalu, HI is a 14K-resident city in Honolulu County with a median household income of $89,232.
Honolulu County, Hawaii. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Waimalu, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Waimalu has a population larger than 22% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, a median home value of $597,800, and 5 hospitals serving the surrounding area.
- 14K
- Population (place)
- Bottom 23%
- By size
- $89,232
- Median income (place)
- $597,800
- Median home (place)
- 6.8%
- Poverty rate (place)
The read on Waimalu
Waimalu posts a median household income higher than 60% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks, where 5 hospitals serve the Waimalu area.
- Top 40%
- by median income, US cities
- 5
- hospitals in & near Waimalu
Composite score · Waimalu, HI
66/100
4 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2024
A transparent index Areazine derives from Census ACS medians (income, poverty, bachelor's share) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when published, not an official Census Bureau or FBI rating. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability rating, not a recommendation to move to or avoid any place. Missing inputs drop out and redistribute weight. How it is calculated.
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents. State-level rate (per-city UCR reporting is incomplete/voluntary): every city in the state shares this value; lower is stronger on this axis.
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis. ACS 5-Year Estimates.
Median household income vs cities tracked on Areazine; ACS 5-Year Estimates.
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS 5-Year Estimates.
See the full national tables: Healthiest Cities in America (health outcomes only) · Community Wellbeing Cities (this page's blended composite).
Where Waimalu income ranks nationally
Median household income vs. every place Areazine profiles (place-level ACS)
$89,232 Top 40% higher than 60% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles
Each bar is a $20,000-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
The quick read
Reading Waimalu, HI beyond the headline numbers
Waimalu sits inside Honolulu County, Hawaii, at roughly 21.39°N, -157.94°W. Population 13,730, $89,232 median household income. Median home value $597,800, median rent $1,931. Poverty rate 6.8%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.
5 hospitals in/around Waimalu (nearest 3.6 mi away), 3.8/5 avg rating, 5 with an ER. Climate: 78°F annual average, 16.4" precipitation.
Among the CDC measures on this page, short sleep duration departs furthest from its peer median: 47.8% in Waimalu, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,852 cities reporting that measure.
4% of Waimalu workers commute by public transit, a larger share than at least three quarters of reporting cities.
The median home in Waimalu costs around 6.7 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.
At 43.9 years, Waimalu's median age is in the oldest quarter of reporting cities.
$1,931/month is the median rent in Waimalu, HI, placing it in the priciest quarter of reporting cities; housing cost is doing real work against the household budget here.
Unemployment in Waimalu sits at 6.2%, above the midpoint of reporting cities.
At 6.8%, poverty in Waimalu, HI runs below the midpoint of reporting cities -- enough to matter locally, not enough to dominate the city's profile.
36.3% of Waimalu adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, above the midpoint of reporting cities.
Remote work covers 11.5% of Waimalu workers, under the midpoint for reporting cities.
Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Waimalu 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 (Honolulu County): Waimalu'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.
Economic Snapshot
The clearest outlier in Waimalu's numbers is poverty rate: 6.8%, which is 45% below what's typical across the tracked-city set. Median rent runs 25% above average too, at $1,931/mo.
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Median Rent | |
| Poverty Rate | 6.8% -45% vs avg |
| Unemployment | 6.2% |
| Bachelor's Degree+ | 36.3% |
| Work From Home | 11.5% |
| Public Transit | 4% |
Headcount
Community Health 15 measures
Health Indicators
Preventive Care
Other Measures
Nearest Hospitals 5 within 25 mi
CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating (1-5): a composite score across dozens of reported measures, not a single outcome guarantee for any patient. It isn't adjusted for patient case mix and isn't directly comparable across hospital types, a critical-access facility and a large teaching hospital aren't rated on the same measure set.
Climate
NOAA 1991-2020 NormalsCost of Living
BEA 202411.0% above national average
Metro area: Urban Honolulu, HI (MSA)
Source: BEA Regional Price Parities via FRED. RPP of 100 = national average.
Flood Claims on Record
FEMA NFIP, county-levelSince 2016, NFIP has paid out $44.8M across 866 flood insurance claims filed in Honolulu County.
2026-03-KonaStorm alone generated 244 of those claims, the county's largest named flood event in this record.
Source: FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) claims, via OpenFEMA. County-level data: individual claims are not attributed to a specific city or address by FEMA.
What alerts and safety updates affect Waimalu?
No area-tagged alerts are on record for Waimalu right now. New federal and counterpart-agency notices still land in the site feed as agencies publish them.
City alert dispatch desk
Sheet HI-WAIMALU · Waimalu
Waimalu: 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 Waimalu; untagged NOAA county warnings may still appear in the site feed. Browse Hawaii state hubs · Methodology
Keep reading
What People Ask 9
What is the population of Waimalu, HI? ▼
What is the median household income in Waimalu? ▼
What is the median home value in Waimalu? ▼
What are the top health concerns in Waimalu? ▼
What hospitals are near Waimalu? ▼
What is the median age in Waimalu? ▼
What is the climate like in Waimalu? ▼
What is the cost of living in Waimalu? ▼
Has Waimalu had flood insurance claims? ▼
Cities nationwide with a comparable poverty or income figure 8
Two ACS-derived peer sets for Waimalu, both outside Hawaii so the neighborhoods are not the geographic nearby list below.
Similar poverty rate
Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside HI (6.8% here).
Similar median income
Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside HI ($89,232 here).
Compare Waimalu 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
What to do with Waimalu's numbers
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 Waimalu 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 Waimalu against Hawaii peers on any ranking lens. Explore Hawaii
Place-level figures for population and economics (income, home value, poverty, education) come from U.S. Census ACS; health data is CDC PLACES; hospital counts cover facilities in and around the city. Any county-level trend is labeled as such.
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 (Honolulu 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 2026-09-16.