Crawford County, AR

County Profile

61,139 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Crawford County, AR.

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.

58out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 33% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity695th of 1,255 counties53
Growth1012th of 1,226 counties32
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties100
Climate832nd of 1,254 counties63
Physical resilience940th of 1,255 counties40
AccessTop 31% of 1,255 counties89
Economic stability898th of 1,255 counties48
The quick read

Residential permitting has slowed: 54 units authorized over the past twelve months, 25% below the prior year.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, cold wave and ice storm.

A major airport is 19 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
61,139
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$64,132
Bottom 47% nationally
Density
103/sq mi
595.3 sq mi of land
Median age
39.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Crawford County
Arkansas
Metro area
Fort Smith, AR-OK
Nearest major airport
FSM
19 mi · Fort Smith Rgnl
Median home value
$182,800
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.5% is lower than 38% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 1.5% over the past year, to 25,496 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,217$64,132Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,532$30,712Bottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.7%Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute25.6 minTop 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.0%Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment25,496Bottom 33%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.1%Top 41%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.5%Top 10%June 2026
Labor force26,696Bottom 33%June 2026
Labor force participation55.5%Bottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.5%Top 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/064.52.5
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.5% 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
202120222023202464k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $64,132 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 — Fort Smith, AR-OK
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Retail Salespersons2,880$28,350
Fast Food and Counter Workers2,760$23,760
General and Operations Managers2,320$70,330
Home Health and Personal Care Aides2,240$28,410
Stockers and Order Fillers2,240$32,050
Registered Nurses2,180$79,870

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 13.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
22
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
VAN BUREN HIGH SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT1,23210.7
ALMA HIGH SCHOOLALMA SCHOOL DISTRICT9818.2
ALMA MIDDLE SCHOOLALMA SCHOOL DISTRICT72211.6
NORTHRIDGE MIDDLE SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT71316.2
ALMA PRIMARY SCHOOLALMA SCHOOL DISTRICT70418.1
ALMA INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLALMA SCHOOL DISTRICT68519.6
BUTTERFIELD TRAIL MIDDLE SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT55714.3
VAN BUREN FRESHMAN ACADEMYVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT46812.6
CENTRAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT46618.6
JAMES R. TATE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT45918.4
OLIVER SPRINGS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT44118.4
KING ELEMENTARY SCHOOLVAN BUREN SCHOOL DISTRICT43715.6

65.2% 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 $851 takes 16% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.9 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
15.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$851
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$182,800
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.85Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate75.5%Top 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±5325,621Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$30$851Bottom 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$12,817$182,800Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income15.9%Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.8%Bottom 24%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
32/ 100
Ranks 1012 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, 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 grown 3% since 2020, reaching 62,258 in 2024.

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

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

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

At 0.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
54
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.9
Bottom 13% nationally
Year over year
−25%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202462k60k
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
202220232024202515047
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−45%).

Weather & climate

5 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 30°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 47.3 inches, including 2.9 inches of snow.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FT SMITH RGNL AP, 18.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation47.3"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall2.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low30°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high94°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing43°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

40 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Ice stormHigh
WildfireElevated
LandslideModerate
Winter weatherModerate
Inland floodingModerate
DroughtModerate
EarthquakeModerate
Cold waveModerate
HailModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, tornado, lightning, hurricane, strong wind.

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.

Crawford County records 6.8 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 24.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 8.1 per 100,000 residents in Crawford County.

Homicide
6.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
24.2
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
8.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
22.6
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 Crawford 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 Crawford County rather than Crawford 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

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 19 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Fort Smith RgnlFSM19 mi9,318 ft
Northwest Arkansas NtlXNA48 mi8,801 ft
Tulsa IntlTUL102 mi10,000 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
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.

Cities in Crawford County, AR