Badger, Alaska

Area Profile

18,677 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Badger, in Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 34% of 3,904 published cities64
Housing affordabilityTop 25% of 4,223 published cities93
Climate4223rd of 4,223 published cities38
Physical resilience3213th of 4,182 published cities29
Access2694th of 4,226 published cities88
Economic stabilityTop 28% of 4,226 published cities71
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.8% and median household income $97,183, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, wildfire and landslide.

A major airport is 14 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
18,677
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$97,183
Top 20% nationally
Density
284/sq mi
65.7 sq mi of land
Median age
35.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Fairbanks North Star Borough
Alaska
Metro area
Fairbanks-College, AK
Nearest major airport
FAI
14 mi · Fairbanks Intl
Median home value
$310,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.8% is lower than 70% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.9% over the past year, to 43,250 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$11,161$97,183Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$8,223$54,127Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.2%Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute23.9 minBottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher23.5%Top 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment43,250Bottom 47%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.5%Top 41%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.9%Bottom 47%June 2026
Labor force44,964Bottom 47%June 2026
Labor force participation68.9%Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$73,460Top 31%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$61,810Top 12%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.4%Bottom 21%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.8%Bottom 30%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202498k87k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $97,183 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.
Largest occupations — Fairbanks-College, AK
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Retail Salespersons1,040$37,550
Stockers and Order Fillers840$40,850
Fast Food and Counter Workers800$30,170
Cashiers670$37,340
General and Operations Managers630$114,990
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive630$47,860

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Fairbanks North Star Borough, AK, which contains this city.

There are 18.5 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
North Pole High SchoolFairbanks North Star Borough School District69520.4
North Pole Middle SchoolFairbanks North Star Borough School District63118.0
Ticasuk Brown ElementaryFairbanks North Star Borough School District35116.7
Midnight Sun Elementary SchoolFairbanks North Star Borough School District32217.9
North Pole ElementaryFairbanks North Star Borough School District31218.4
Discovery Peak Charter School · charterFairbanks North Star Borough School District19319.3

30.8% 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 Alaska’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 $1,629 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.2 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
20.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,629
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$310,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.20Top 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate80.6%Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±5287,602Top 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$226$1,629Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$19,393$310,600Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.1%Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate11.6%Top 44%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 →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

2 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 68°F and January a low of -2°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 15.0 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 42, in the Good band, and about 25 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

-10°10°30°50°70°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FAIRBANKS 11 NE, 12.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index89.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation15.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low-2°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high68°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months21991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100252024 calendar year
Median air quality index42.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing56°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
42
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
89
90th percentile index
Days above 100
25
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

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. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

29 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, wildfire and landslide.

LandslideModerate
WildfireHigh
EarthquakeHigh
Winter weatherModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, avalanche, lightning, volcanic activity, inland flooding, ice storm, strong wind, hail, tornado.

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.

Fairbanks North Star Borough records 8.9 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 31.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 25.3 per 100,000 residents in Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Homicide
8.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
31.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
25.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
26.4
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 Fairbanks North Star Borough 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 Badger rather than Badger 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

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 14 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Fairbanks IntlFAI14 mi11,800 ft
Ted Stevens Anchorage IntlANC264 mi10,865 ft
King SalmonAKN519 mi8,901 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.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

Other cities in Fairbanks-College, AK

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
FairbanksFairbanks North Star Borough32,08351vs Badger
CollegeFairbanks North Star Borough11,924vs Badger

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.

Compare

Put Badger side by side with a similar place.

Badger vs CollegeBadger vs Knik-FairviewBadger vs AnchorageBadger vs Fernley

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
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
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
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

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 Badger

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9970521,769$96,964