Russellville, Arkansas

Area Profile

29,162 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Russellville, in Pope County.

58out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 40% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2461st of 3,904 published cities50
GrowthTop 31% of 2,973 published cities61
Housing affordabilityTop 29% of 4,223 published cities91
Climate2803rd of 4,223 published cities65
Physical resilience2917th of 4,182 published cities38
Access3892nd of 4,226 published cities62
Economic stability3665th of 4,226 published cities37
The quick read

Unemployment is 5.2% and median household income $50,877, 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 3.4 times that income.

A typical July reaches 93°F and a typical January falls to 30°F, on thirty-year normals.

At a glance

Population
29,162
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$50,877
Bottom 24% nationally
Density
1,030/sq mi
28.3 sq mi of land
Median age
30.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Pope County
Arkansas
Metro area
Russellville, AR
Nearest major airport
LIT
64 mi · Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams Fld
Median home value
$172,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.2% is lower than 19% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 0.9% over the past year, to 13,125 employed residents.

Median household income of $50,877 is below 76% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,203$50,877Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,067$27,697Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate20.8%Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute17.3 minBottom 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher28.8%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment13,125Bottom 9%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)2.0%Top 22%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.9%Top 13%June 2026
Labor force13,841Bottom 9%June 2026
Labor force participation59.7%Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.2%Top 19%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.22.6
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.2% 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
202120222023202451k39k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $50,877 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.

There are 13.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
RUSSELLVILLE HIGH SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT1,28110.8
RUSSELLVILLE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT80812.4
RUSSELLVILLE MIDDLE SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT79513.5
SEQUOYAH ELEMENTARY SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT54217.5
OAKLAND HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT50317.3
RUSSELLVILLE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT43615.6
CRAWFORD ELEMENTARY SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT39916.6
CENTER VALLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT39714.7
DWIGHT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLRUSSELLVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT23414.6
ARK TECH UNIVERISTY CAREER CENTERARK TECH UNIVERISTY CAREER CENTER0

66.0% 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 $842 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.4 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
19.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$842
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$172,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.39Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate55.4%Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±34711,675Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$35$842Bottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$11,696$172,400Bottom 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.9%Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate10.9%Top 46%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
61/ 100
Top 31% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, 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 2% since 2020, reaching 29,442 in 2024.

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

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 20% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 1.7 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
50
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.7
Bottom 42% nationally
Year over year
+72%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
20.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202429k29k
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
202020222023202420257630
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−50%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 93°F and January a low of 30°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 46.4 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station RUSSELLVILLE MUNI AP, 2.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation46.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low30°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high93°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 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, earthquake and ice storm.

Ice stormHigh
EarthquakeElevated
Winter weatherModerate
Inland floodingHigh
LightningModerate
LandslideModerate
Cold waveModerate

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

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.

Pope County records 4.6 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 16.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 9.7 per 100,000 residents in Pope County.

Homicide
4.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
16.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
9.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.1
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 Pope 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 Russellville rather than Russellville 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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 64 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Bill and Hillary Clinton Ntl/Adams FldLIT64 mi8,273 ft
Fort Smith RgnlFSM69 mi9,318 ft
Northwest Arkansas NtlXNA95 mi8,801 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
58
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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 Russellville

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
7280223,283$64,11059
7280119,019$47,83056