Jacksonville, Arkansas

Area Profile

29,221 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Jacksonville, in Pulaski County.

60out of 100
Area Score
Top 50% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2190th of 3,904 published cities53
GrowthTop 40% of 2,973 published cities56
Housing affordabilityTop 39% of 4,223 published cities86
Climate2468th of 4,223 published cities68
Physical resilience2771st of 4,182 published cities43
Access2518th of 4,226 published cities89
Economic stability3418th of 4,226 published cities41
The quick read

Unemployment is 5.0% and median household income $49,666, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Residential permitting has slowed: 128 units authorized over the past twelve months, 17% below the prior year.

A major airport is 12 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
29,221
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$49,666
Bottom 22% nationally
Density
1,019/sq mi
28.7 sq mi of land
Median age
32.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Pulaski County
Arkansas
Metro area
Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR
Nearest major airport
LIT
12 mi · Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams Fld
Median home value
$163,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.0% is lower than 25% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 2.2% over the past year, to 12,721 employed residents.

Median household income of $49,666 is below 78% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,810$49,666Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,720$26,851Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate19.8%Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute22.2 minBottom 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher22.1%Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment12,721Bottom 8%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)5.2%Top 6%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)2.2%Top 4%June 2026
Labor force13,386Bottom 8%June 2026
Labor force participation64.3%Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$58,000Bottom 9%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$45,790Bottom 8%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 45%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.0%Top 25%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.43.1
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.0% 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
202120222023202450k46k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $49,666 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 — Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Registered Nurses11,550$81,070
Retail Salespersons10,620$29,150
General and Operations Managers9,330$76,080
Fast Food and Counter Workers8,720$27,470
Stockers and Order Fillers7,990$35,340
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers7,910$57,050

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

Public schools
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.0
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
JACKSONVILLE HIGH SCHOOLJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT1,20810.6
JACKSONVILLE MIDDLE SCHOOLJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT92612.2
JACKSONVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT73317.9
MURRELL TAYLOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT42815.3
BOBBY G LESTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT42113.2
BAYOU METO ELEMENTARY SCHOOLJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT41614.9
ADKINS PRESCHOOL CENTERJACKSONVILLE NORTH PULASKI SCHOOL DISTRICT22817.5
JACKSONVILLE LIGHTHOUSE ELEMENTARY · charterARKANSAS LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOLS21015.0
JACKSONVILLE LIGHTHOUSE FLIGHTLINE ACADEMY · charterARKANSAS LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOLS1569.8
JACKSONVILLE LIGHTHOUSE HIGH SCHOOL · charterARKANSAS LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOLS6012.0

54.5% 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 $930 takes 22% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.3 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
22.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$930
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$163,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.29Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate49.6%Bottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±67012,845Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$93$930Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$13,351$163,400Bottom 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income22.5%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate13.5%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
56/ 100
Top 40% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 4 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 fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 29,129 in 2024.

Permit activity has risen for 4 consecutive years.

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

At 4.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
128
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
4.4
Top 33% nationally
Year over year
−17%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202430k29k
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
2020202220232024202515450
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+208%).

Weather & climate

5 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 32°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 51.8 inches, including 3.8 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 55, in the Moderate band, and about 5 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station LITTLE ROCK, 8.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index75.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation51.8"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall3.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low32°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10052024 calendar year
Median air quality index55.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing41°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
55
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
75
90th percentile index
Days above 100
5
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

43 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Ice stormElevated
TornadoModerate
EarthquakeModerate
Winter weatherModerate
LightningModerate
Inland floodingElevated
HailModerate
LandslideModerate

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

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.

Pulaski County records 11.7 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 22.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 19.7 per 100,000 residents in Pulaski County.

Homicide
11.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
22.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
19.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
18.0
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 Pulaski 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 Jacksonville rather than Jacksonville 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

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 12 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams FldLIT12 mi8,273 ft
Tunica MuniUTA102 mi8,500 ft
Greenville Mid-DeltaGLH117 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.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
60
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

Other cities in Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
Little RockPulaski County203,43665vs Jacksonville
ConwayFaulkner County67,64267vs Jacksonville
North Little RockPulaski County64,53863vs Jacksonville
BentonSaline County36,59575vs Jacksonville
SherwoodPulaski County33,07068vs Jacksonville
CabotLonoke County26,96071vs Jacksonville
BryantSaline County21,50475vs Jacksonville
MaumellePulaski County19,37373vs Jacksonville

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

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)
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.

ZIP codes in Jacksonville

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
7207638,437$54,37960