72653Mountain Home, Arkansas

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 72653.

59out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 47% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 49% of 6,210 published ZIP areas55
GrowthTop 23% of 5,428 published ZIP areas65
Housing affordabilityTop 39% of 6,685 published ZIP areas87
ClimateTop 33% of 6,789 published ZIP areas74
Physical resilience4684th of 6,709 published ZIP areas38
Access6652nd of 6,791 published ZIP areas44
Economic stability6218th of 6,742 published ZIP areas29
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.6% and median household income $48,718, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published ZIP profiles.

55 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, within 11% of the prior year — steady rather than turning.

Rent takes 21% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.6 times that income.

At a glance

Population
29,564
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$48,718
Bottom 13% nationally
Density
134/sq mi
220.8 sq mi of land
Median age
51.3
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Mountain Home
Arkansas
Metro area
Mountain Home, AR
Nearest major airport
SGF
84 mi · Springfield-Branson Ntl
Median home value
$174,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.6% is lower than 43% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 3.1% over the past year, to 17,109 employed residents.

Median household income of $48,718 is below 87% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,210$48,718Bottom 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,193$34,181Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.7%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.1 minBottom 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.3%Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment17,109Bottom 14%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)4.7%Top 6%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)3.1%Top 1%June 2026
Labor force17,925Bottom 14%June 2026
Labor force participation44.1%Bottom 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 47%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.6%Top 43%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202449k43k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $48,718 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 does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Mountain Home, AR, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 14.3 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
7
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
MOUNTAIN HOME CAREER ACADEMIES · charterMOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL DISTRICT1,52312.0
HACKLER INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLMOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL DISTRICT83718.6
NELSON WILKS HERRON ELEMENTARYMOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL DISTRICT55917.5
PINKSTON MIDDLE SCHOOLMOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL DISTRICT54614.4
MOUNTAIN HOME KINDERGARTENMOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL DISTRICT30016.7
GUY BERRY COLLEGE AND CAREER ACADEMY · charterMOUNTAIN HOME SCHOOL DISTRICT528.7
ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY-MOUNTAIN HOME CAREER CENTERASU - MOUNTAIN HOME CAREER CENTER0

41.9% 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 $854 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.6 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
21.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$854
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$174,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.58Top 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate73.9%Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±56615,504Top 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$44$854Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,049$174,200Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income21.0%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate11.6%Top 48%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
65/ 100
Top 23% of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

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

At 4.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
55
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
4.2
Top 37% nationally
Year over year
−11%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Mountain Home, AR, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 28°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 41.2 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MOUNTAIN HOME BAXTER AP, 5.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation41.2"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low28°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°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

38 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Ice stormHigh
TornadoModerate
EarthquakeElevated
LandslideModerate
Winter weatherModerate
Cold waveModerate
Inland floodingModerate

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

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.

Baxter County records 4.3 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 23.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 11.7 per 100,000 residents in Baxter County.

Homicide
4.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
23.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
11.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.2
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 Baxter 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 72653 rather than 72653 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 84 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Springfield-Branson NtlSGF84 mi8,000 ft
Northwest Arkansas NtlXNA107 mi8,801 ft
Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams FldLIT112 mi8,273 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
59
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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.

72653 vs Mountain Home

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

72653
Mountain Home
Median household income
$48,718
vs
$41,274
Per capita income
$34,181
vs
$35,579
Population density
134/sq mi
vs
1,091/sq mi
Median home value
$174,200
vs
$169,800
Median gross rent
$854
vs
$865
Homeownership rate
73.9%
vs
60.9%
Bachelor's degree or higher
20.3%
vs
23.1%
Poverty rate
14.7%
vs
18.8%
Median age
51.3
vs
47.1

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.