Batesville, Arkansas

Area Profile

11,445 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Batesville, in Independence County.

64out of 100
Area Score
Top 39% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 27% of 3,904 published cities67
GrowthTop 7% of 2,973 published cities77
Housing affordabilityTop 26% of 4,223 published cities93
ClimateTop 43% of 4,223 published cities72
Physical resilience3140th of 4,182 published cities31
Access4064th of 4,226 published cities50
Economic stability3951st of 4,226 published cities29
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.9% and median household income $51,856, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Rent takes 20% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.2 times that income.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, tornado and earthquake.

At a glance

Population
11,445
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$51,856
Bottom 26% nationally
Density
987/sq mi
11.6 sq mi of land
Median age
33.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Independence County
Arkansas
Metro area
Batesville, AR
Nearest major airport
LIT
79 mi · Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams Fld
Median home value
$163,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 66% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 4.1% over the past year, to 18,577 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,808$51,856Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$4,183$28,411Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate26.3%Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute13.7 minBottom 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher21.8%Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment18,577Bottom 22%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)7.5%Top 2%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)4.1%Top 1%June 2026
Labor force19,326Bottom 22%June 2026
Labor force participation57.8%Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 45%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 34%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202454k50k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $51,856 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 Independence County, AR, which contains this city.

There are 14.8 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
BATESVILLE HIGH SCHOOL CHARTER · charterBATESVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT98611.9
EAGLE MOUNTAIN MAGNET ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBATESVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT90525.9
SOUTHSIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLSOUTHSIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Independence)85220.8
BATESVILLE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL CHARTER · charterBATESVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT69015.0
WEST MAGNET ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBATESVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT59918.2
SOUTHSIDE CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL · charterSOUTHSIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Independence)4646.5
SOUTHSIDE MIDDLE SCHOOLSOUTHSIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Independence)45020.5
SOUTHSIDE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL · charterSOUTHSIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Independence)42711.9
SULPHUR ROCK MAGNET ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBATESVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT33317.5
UACCB TECHNICAL CENTERUACCB TECHNICAL CENTER0

59.1% 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 Arkansas’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 $882 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
20.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$882
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$163,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.15Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate51.5%Bottom 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3734,669Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$48$882Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$15,343$163,600Bottom 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.4%Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate13.4%Top 38%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
77/ 100
Top 7% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 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 3% since 2020, reaching 11,539 in 2024.

86% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 3.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
37
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
3.2
Top 41% nationally
Year over year
+118%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
86.5%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202412k11k
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
20202022202320242025385.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+23%).

Weather & climate

7 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 26°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 48.9 inches.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station BATESVILLE 8 WNW, 9.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.1"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation48.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low26°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing42°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

31 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Ice stormHigh
EarthquakeModerate
TornadoModerate
Cold waveElevated
Winter weatherModerate
LandslideModerate
LightningModerate
Inland floodingModerate
Strong windModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, wildfire, drought, hurricane, 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.

Independence County records 6.9 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 26.1 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 11.3 per 100,000 residents in Independence County.

Homicide
6.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
26.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
11.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
28.7
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 Independence 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 Batesville rather than Batesville 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 79 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams FldLIT79 mi8,273 ft
Arkansas IntlBYH95 mi11,602 ft
Millington/MemphisNQA103 mi8,001 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
64
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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 Batesville

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
7250126,218$52,82964