Chelsea, Alabama

Unemployment across Shelby County, AL, which contains Chelsea, is 2.9%, lower than in 95% of the 4,226 measured US cities.

Employment across Shelby County, AL, which contains Chelsea, fell 1.9% over the past year, to 119,334 employed residents.

48% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 88% of measured US cities.

Median household income of $115,337 is higher than in 89% of measured US cities.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Shelby County, AL, which contains this city.

Prices for everything a household buys run about 8% below the national average — the Bureau of Economic Analysis index reads 91.8, against 100 for the nation. Nationally, housing drives most of the spread between places in this index; other goods vary far less.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s house price index for the Birmingham, AL Metro Area is up 39% over five years, and up 3.4% over the last year. It follows repeat sales of the same homes, so it measures price change rather than which homes happened to sell.

Homeowners here who pay a tax bill pay a median of $1,393 a year in real estate taxes, about 0.39% of the median home value.

HUD’s Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom, set near the 40th percentile of recent new leases, is $1,800, some 27% above the $1,414 tenants already here pay.

At HUD’s Fair Market Rent of $1,800 a month for a two-bedroom, keeping rent to 30% of income takes a household income of about $72,000 a year, about 62% of the median household income here of $115,337.

The typical renter household here spends 19% of its income on rent, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened. Median gross rent runs $1,414 a month.

A median home at $360,000 costs 3.0 times the median income of its owner-occupied households, $120,153, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

These measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with. They compare housing cost with local earnings only: transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not in them. How to read affordability, the two rent figures and the cost-of-living index.

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 36°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 56.2 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 40, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. Air quality is measured by EPA monitors and published by county only where a monitor sits; a county without one shows nothing rather than an estimate, and a county reading is still the county’s. How to read climate and air quality.

Each of these is absent for a reason, not by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them; the weighting is on the methodology page.

Reported crime

Offenses reported to police are published by department rather than by town, so AreaProfile shows a rate only on city profiles, and only where that city’s department submitted every month of a year. Either no municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — or its department did not report every month of the year. Either way there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.

Taxes

Income and sales taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Property taxes are shown in the housing section but are not part of the score. The cost-of-living index above is a price level for all consumption, not a household budget, and it excludes taxes. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.

Anything about a specific address

Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house.

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Put Chelsea side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated October 8, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology, or every source with how often each updates.

Every ZIP area in Chelsea with census figures of its own, largest first. The ones linked below diverge enough from the city as a whole to carry a full profile; the rest track Chelsea closely, so their figures are here rather than on a page that would repeat this one. An Area Score is calculated for published profiles only, which is why it is blank on those rows.