Camden, Arkansas

Area Profile

10,307 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Camden, in Ouachita County.

48out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 10% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2967th of 3,904 published cities44
Growth2801st of 2,973 published cities17
Housing affordabilityTop 12% of 4,223 published cities98
Climate2241st of 4,223 published cities70
Physical resilience3227th of 4,182 published cities29
Access4115th of 4,226 published cities45
Economic stability4117th of 4,226 published cities23
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.7% and the Opportunity signal places Camden in the bottom 24%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 3 units authorized over the past twelve months, 70% below the prior year.

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

At a glance

Population
10,307
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$49,361
Bottom 22% nationally
Density
624/sq mi
16.5 sq mi of land
Median age
39.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Ouachita County
Arkansas
Metro area
Camden, AR
Nearest major airport
LIT
88 mi · Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams Fld
Median home value
$107,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.7% is lower than 36% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 1.0% over the past year, to 8,963 employed residents.

Median household income of $49,361 is below 78% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,736$49,361Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,132$28,226Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate20.5%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute22.6 minBottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher18.5%Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment8,963Bottom 2%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.0%Bottom 30%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.0%Top 12%June 2026
Labor force9,409Bottom 2%June 2026
Labor force participation53.9%Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 35%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.7%Top 36%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202451k42k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $49,361 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 Ouachita County, AR, which contains this city.

There are 9.9 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
8
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
9.9
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
CAMDEN FAIRVIEW HIGH SCHOOLCAMDEN FAIRVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT6529.3
FAIRVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCAMDEN FAIRVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT52314.9
HARMONY GROVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLHARMONY GROVE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Ouachita)42516.3
CAMDEN FAIRVIEW MIDDLE SCHOOLCAMDEN FAIRVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT42110.0
HARMONY GROVE HIGH SCHOOLHARMONY GROVE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Ouachita)4024.8
IVORY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLCAMDEN FAIRVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT28615.1
CAMDEN FAIRVIEW EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTERCAMDEN FAIRVIEW SCHOOL DISTRICT113
SAU TECH CAREER CENTERSAU-TECH CAREER CENTER0

84.0% 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 $768 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.2 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
18.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$768
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$107,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.18Bottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate59.1%Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2965,657Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$145$768Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$19,730$107,400Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.7%Top 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate27.8%Top 14%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
17/ 100
Ranks 2801 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2022 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 fallen 5% since 2020, reaching 10,116 in 2024.

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

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

At 0.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
3
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.3
Bottom 16% nationally
Year over year
−70%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202411k10k
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
2022202320242025171.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−67%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 94°F and January a low of 34°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 52.1 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station EL DORADO S AR RGNL AP, 24.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation52.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low34°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high94°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing38°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

29 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Overall hazard risk is lower than 78% of measured US cities.

Ice stormHigh
EarthquakeModerate
Strong windElevated
HailModerate
TornadoModerate
LightningModerate
LandslideModerate
Inland floodingModerate
Winter weatherModerate

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

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.

Ouachita County records 15.3 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 21.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 12.7 per 100,000 residents in Ouachita County.

Homicide
15.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
21.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
12.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
17.5
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 Ouachita 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 Camden rather than Camden 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 88 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams FldLIT88 mi8,273 ft
Shreveport RgnlSHV96 mi8,348 ft
Greenville Mid-DeltaGLH108 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
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Put Camden side by side with a similar place.

Camden vs WoodwardCamden vs Union CityCamden vs VicksburgCamden vs Malvern

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 Camden

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
7170116,847$49,11047