Pinal County, AZ

County Profile

469,006 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Pinal County, AZ.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

54out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 21% of 1,225 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity984th of 1,255 counties measured40
GrowthTop 10% of 1,226 counties measured74
Housing affordability1031st of 1,255 counties measured73
Climate1076th of 1,254 counties measured57
Physical resilience1052nd of 1,255 counties measured30
AccessTop 41% of 1,255 counties measured86
Economic stability830th of 1,255 counties measured51
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published profiles: unemployment is 5.7% and the Opportunity signal places Pinal County in the bottom 22%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 7,102 units authorized over the past twelve months, 20% below the prior year.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, heat wave and wildfire.

At a glance

Population
469,006
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$80,266
Top 18% nationally
Density
87/sq mi
5366.7 sq mi of land
Median age
40.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Pinal County
Arizona
Metro area
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ
Nearest major airport
IWA
32 mi · Mesa Gateway
Median home value
$349,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.7% is lower than 9% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 3.7% over the past year, to 210,405 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$1,518$80,266Top 18%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$903$36,067Top 44%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate11.1%Bottom 32%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute34.5 minTop 8%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher22.5%Top 49%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Employment210,405Top 13%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.5%Top 16%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.7%Bottom 5%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force223,109Top 13%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force participation53.9%Bottom 27%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)1.0%Top 5%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate5.7%Top 9%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.83.1
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.7% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202480k65k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $80,266 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 — Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
General and Operations Managers81,520$98,610
Retail Salespersons69,060$35,960
Customer Service Representatives68,930$46,410
Home Health and Personal Care Aides57,940$36,930
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand56,420$44,950
Fast Food and Counter Workers54,900$34,540

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.

There are 18.3 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
133
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
American Leadership Academy Ironwood K12 · charterAmerican Leadership Academy Inc. (4348)2,08414.0
Vista Grande High SchoolCasa Grande Union High School District (4453)1,94322.6
Casa Grande Union High SchoolCasa Grande Union High School District (4453)1,91222.0
Maricopa High SchoolMaricopa Unified School District (4441)1,84021.6
Eduprize School · charterEduprize Schools LLC (89412)1,73317.2
Legacy Traditional School - Casa Grande · charterLegacy Traditional School - Casa Grande (92199)1,48624.0
Legacy Traditional School - Maricopa · charterLegacy Traditional School - Maricopa (88360)1,36348.7
Poston Butte High SchoolFlorence Unified School District (4437)1,31019.0
Desert Sunrise High SchoolMaricopa Unified School District (4441)1,26123.4
Combs High SchoolJ O Combs Unified School District (4445)1,18221.9
American Leadership Academy Anthem K-6 · charterAmerican Leadership Academy Inc. (4348)1,07912.0
Santa Cruz Elementary SchoolMaricopa Unified School District (4441)94118.1

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 Arizona’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 $1,537 takes 23% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.3 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
23.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,537
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$349,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income4.35Top 15%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate81.7%Top 12%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±196184,651Top 5%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$63$1,537Top 7%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$3,631$349,000Top 13%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.0%Top 8%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate12.3%Bottom 41%of 3,2222024 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
74/ 100
Top 10% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, 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 19% since 2020, reaching 513,862 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 9% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 15.1 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
7,102
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
15.1
Top 2% nationally
Year over year
−20%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
9.3%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024514k430k
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
20202021202220232024202510k6k
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+28%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 105°F and January a low of 42°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 8.6 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 77, in the Moderate band, and about 70 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

30°50°70°90°110°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FLORENCE, 8.2 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index111.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation8.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low42°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high105°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100702024 calendar year
Median air quality index77.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing38°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
77
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
111
90th percentile index
Days above 100
70
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

30 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Heat waveElevated
WildfireElevated
Inland floodingElevated
DroughtModerate

Low or minimal exposure: lightning, hail, earthquake, strong wind, landslide, tornado, avalanche, hurricane, winter weather, cold wave.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Pinal County records 4.1 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 19.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 22.9 per 100,000 residents in Pinal County.

Homicide
4.1
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
19.0
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
22.9
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
21.3
per 100,000 residents

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 Pinal 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 Pinal County rather than Pinal County 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

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

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Mesa GatewayIWA32 mi10,401 ft
Phoenix Sky Harbor IntlPHX52 mi11,489 ft
ScottsdaleSDL58 mi8,249 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
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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
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.