85118Gold Canyon, Arizona

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 85118.

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
Opportunity4543rd of 6,210 published ZIP areas44
Housing affordability4202nd of 6,685 published ZIP areas71
Climate6230th of 6,789 published ZIP areas57
Physical resilience5143rd of 6,709 published ZIP areas29
AccessTop 39% of 6,791 published ZIP areas95
Economic stability5282nd of 6,742 published ZIP areas42
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 5.7% and the Opportunity signal places 85118 in the bottom 27%.

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

A major airport is 17 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
14,932
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$86,393
Top 30% nationally
Density
100/sq mi
148.7 sq mi of land
Median age
66.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Gold Canyon
Arizona
Metro area
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ
Nearest major airport
IWA
17 mi · Mesa Gateway
Median home value
$481,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.7% is lower than 12% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

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

40% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 79% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$7,445$86,393Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$6,207$57,873Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.0%Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute33.4 minTop 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher40.1%Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment210,405Top 22%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.5%Top 11%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.7%Bottom 5%June 2026
Labor force223,109Top 22%June 2026
Labor force participation33.6%Bottom 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$69,630Top 41%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$51,380Top 44%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)1.0%Top 5%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.7%Top 12%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202486k71k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $86,393 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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Gold Canyon, AZ, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 18.8 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
1
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Peralta Trail Elementary SchoolApache Junction Unified District (4443)28218.8

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 $1,387 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.6 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
19.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,387
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$481,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.58Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate91.6%Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±5289,415Top 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$203$1,387Top 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$28,036$481,700Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.3%Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate21.1%Top 25%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

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 43°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 12.6 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 APACHE JUNCTION 5 NE, 10.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index111.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation12.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low43°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 swing37°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

29 / 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 publishes at county level. ZIP values are the land-area-weighted mean of the counties the ZIP Code Tabulation Area intersects. Expected annual loss is not allocated below county level. 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 · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
19.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
22.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
21.3
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 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 85118 rather than 85118 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 17 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Mesa GatewayIWA17 mi10,401 ft
ScottsdaleSDL37 mi8,249 ft
Phoenix Sky Harbor IntlPHX38 mi11,489 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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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.

85118 vs Gold Canyon

How this ZIP area compares with Gold Canyon as a whole. Both figures come from the same ACS release, so the comparison is like for like.

85118
Gold Canyon
Median household income
$86,393
vs
$93,377
Per capita income
$57,873
vs
$60,558
Population density
100/sq mi
vs
457/sq mi
Median home value
$481,700
vs
$508,100
Median gross rent
$1,387
vs
$1,542
Homeownership rate
91.6%
vs
94.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher
40.1%
vs
40.2%
Poverty rate
4.0%
vs
3.8%
Median age
66.4
vs
66.6

Some demographic statistics use Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, which approximate but do not exactly match USPS ZIP delivery geography. See the methodology for how AreaProfile maps between them.