Cullman, Alabama

Area Profile

19,319 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Cullman, in Cullman County.

69out of 100
Area Score
Top 21% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 32% of 3,904 published cities65
GrowthTop 10% of 2,973 published cities75
Housing affordabilityTop 33% of 4,223 published cities90
ClimateTop 20% of 4,223 published cities78
Physical resilience2345th of 4,182 published cities51
Access3264th of 4,226 published cities80
Economic stability3552nd of 4,226 published cities39
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.6% and median household income $61,224, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 193 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 33% on the prior year.

Rent takes 18% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.9 times that income.

At a glance

Population
19,319
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$61,224
Bottom 41% nationally
Density
846/sq mi
22.8 sq mi of land
Median age
40.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Cullman County
Alabama
Metro area
Cullman, AL
Nearest major airport
HSV
32 mi · Huntsville Intl-Carl T Jones Fld
Median home value
$238,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.6% is lower than 80% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.5% over the past year, to 39,030 employed residents.

32% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 73% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$11,969$61,224Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,883$35,681Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate19.9%Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute23.2 minBottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher32.4%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment39,030Bottom 44%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.4%Top 29%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.5%Top 44%June 2026
Labor force40,472Bottom 44%June 2026
Labor force participation59.0%Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.9%Top 7%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.6%Bottom 20%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202464k55k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $61,224 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.

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

There are 16.8 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
13
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Cullman High SchoolCullman City1,01416.6
Cullman City Primary SchoolCullman City78215.6
Fairview Elementary SchoolCullman County60118.8
Fairview High SchoolCullman County51220.5
Cullman Middle SchoolCullman City49115.8
West Elementary SchoolCullman City49015.8
East Elementary SchoolCullman City46617.3
Fairview Middle SchoolCullman County29120.8
Welti Elementary SchoolCullman County21816.8
Cullman Child Development CenterCullman County17011.3
Cullman Community Comprehensive Learning CenterCullman City0
Cullman Area Technology AcademyCullman County0

40.8% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Alabama’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $925 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.9 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
18.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$925
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$238,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.90Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate61.5%Bottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4888,803Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$54$925Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$17,458$238,900Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.1%Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.7%Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
75/ 100
Top 10% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing — 3 consecutive years, measured from 2020 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has grown 10% since 2020, reaching 20,239 in 2024.

Permit activity has fallen for 3 consecutive years.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 10.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
193
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
10.0
Top 13% nationally
Year over year
+33%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202420k18k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
20202022202320242025277127
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+17%).

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 88°F and January a low of 31°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 58.7 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station CULLMAN 3 ENE, 2.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation58.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low31°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high88°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing37°F1991-2020 Normals

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today.

Physical risk

51 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, cold wave and tornado.

Cold waveModerate
TornadoHigh
EarthquakeElevated
LightningModerate
Heat waveElevated
Inland floodingModerate
HurricaneModerate

Low or minimal exposure: strong wind, landslide, wildfire, ice storm, drought, winter weather, hail.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Cullman County records 5.1 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 17.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 10.9 per 100,000 residents in Cullman County.

Homicide
5.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
10.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
17.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Cullman County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Cullman rather than Cullman itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 32 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Huntsville Intl-Carl T Jones FldHSV32 mi10,001 ft
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth IntlBHM43 mi12,007 ft
Golden Triangle RgnlGTR112 mi8,003 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
69
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them

Profile recalculated August 30, 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 browse every source.

ZIP codes in Cullman

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
3505523,115$58,40568
3505811,545$62,14669