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How do murder rates in the top 5 US cities compare to the national average in 2025?
Executive summary
Available sources show the national homicide rate fell to about 5–6.8 murders per 100,000 people in recent years and that many large U.S. cities — especially the worst‑off — have rates far above that national average (examples: St. Louis ~69.4, Baltimore ~51.1, New Orleans ~40.6 per 100k from city rankings) [1] [2] [3]. Mid‑2025 cross‑city studies report sizable declines in homicides versus 2019 and 2024 in many sample cities (14% fewer homicides in study cities vs. first half of 2019; 17% or 21% drops cited for parts of 2025 in other compilations) [4] [5] [6].
1. What “top 5” means — different lists, different cities
“Top 5” can mean the five deadliest cities by murder rate, the five largest cities by population, or the five cities with the most murders. Different data compilations use different cutoffs and years; for instance, city rankings that list St. Louis (69.4), Baltimore (51.1) and New Orleans (40.6) as highest are framed as “murder rate by city” and therefore rank smaller cities with very high rates above large metros [1]. Federal and nonprofit trackers often limit analysis to either the 30 largest cities or to cities over 100,000 residents, producing different “top five” lists [2] [7].
2. National baseline: what the country’s rate looks like
The national homicide rate in recent federal reporting and aggregations has been reported in the 5–7 per 100,000 range, with USAFacts noting roughly 6.8 per 100,000 in 2023 and Axios reporting a national homicide rate of about 5.0 per 100,000 in 2024 — the lowest since the Obama era, according to that reporting [3] [8]. These national figures are the key baseline for comparisons to city rates [3] [8].
3. How the worst cities compare to the national average
City‑level rates for the most lethal cities dramatically exceed the national average. One ranking lists St. Louis at about 69.4 per 100k, Baltimore 51.1, and New Orleans 40.6 — multiples of the national rate [1]. Axios’ analysis of FBI data similarly found cities like Jackson, MS (~77.8 per 100k) and Birmingham (~59 per 100k) many times above the national rate of ~5 per 100k [8]. In short, the deadliest city rates can be an order of magnitude higher than the U.S. average [1] [8].
4. Large city nuance — not all big cities mirror the worst rates
Some large cities have far lower homicide rates than the deadliest small‑city outliers. For example, reporting notes Chicago’s citywide rate around 24.0 per 100k in one compilation — still well above the national average but lower than the top outliers — while many big cities have shown declines into 2024–2025 [9] [10]. Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) mid‑2025 data emphasize that overall homicide declines have been driven by improvements in a few high‑burden cities, and that situation varies by place [4].
5. Recent trends: 2024 → mid‑2025 declines and caveats
Multiple compilations and mid‑year studies report meaningful declines in homicides into 2025: the CCJ found 14% fewer homicides in its study cities in the first half of 2025 vs. the first half of 2019 [4]. Other sources summarize declines of roughly 17% fewer homicides in the first half of 2025 vs. 2024 across a set of cities, and local reporting cited mid‑2025 drops of 21–33% in specific jurisdictions [5] [6] [9]. These declines mean city‑to‑national gaps may have narrowed in some places, but available sources emphasize that trends are uneven across cities [4] [5].
6. Important methodological limits and competing interpretations
City homicide rates vary with reporting definitions, population denominators, and the set of cities studied; some lists use FBI UCR figures for 2024, others use local incident feeds or half‑year tallies for 2025 [2] [4]. Advocacy groups and media analyses produce different rankings and can frame data to support policy points (e.g., calls for federal intervention or for violence‑prevention investment), so readers should expect differing emphases across outlets [8] [7]. Where sources explicitly report declines, they still warn that localized spikes and measurement gaps remain important caveats [4] [6].
7. Bottom line for comparison in 2025
Using available reporting, the deadliest U.S. cities in 2025 have homicide rates that are multiple times higher than the national average (examples: St. Louis ~69.4, Baltimore ~51.1, New Orleans ~40.6 per 100k), while many large cities and samples studied showed year‑over‑year declines into 2025 that reduce, but do not erase, city‑to‑national disparities [1] [3] [4]. For precise comparisons it’s essential to pick a single data source and definition (FBI UCR vs. local incident data vs. mid‑year tallies) because those choices materially change which five cities you label “top 5” and how they compare to the national rate [2] [4].
If you want, I can produce a side‑by‑side table of the five highest‑rate cities from one chosen source (pick e.g., the May datapandas list or the FBI‑based lists) versus the national rate and show the multiples implied by those comparisons.