Folsom, California

Area Profile

83,916 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Folsom, in Sacramento County.

71out of 100
Area Score
Top 17% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 19% of 3,904 published cities72
GrowthTop 35% of 2,973 published cities59
Housing affordability2775th of 4,223 published cities70
ClimateTop 16% of 4,223 published cities81
Physical resilienceTop 45% of 4,182 published cities63
AccessTop 22% of 4,226 published cities97
Economic stabilityTop 29% of 4,226 published cities70
The quick read

Folsom ranks in the top 19% of published city profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 4.0% and median household income of $139,804.

Residential permitting has slowed: 421 units authorized over the past twelve months, 43% below the prior year.

A major airport is 14 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
83,916
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$139,804
Top 6% nationally
Density
3,010/sq mi
27.9 sq mi of land
Median age
41.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Sacramento County
California
Metro area
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA
Nearest major airport
MCC
14 mi · Mc Clellan Airfield
Median home value
$755,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.0% is lower than 62% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 1.3% over the past year, to 41,141 employed residents.

55% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 91% of measured US cities.

Household income is higher than at least 94% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$10,654$139,804Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,446$62,962Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate5.3%Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute28.4 minTop 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher54.9%Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment41,141Bottom 45%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.5%Top 12%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.3%Bottom 38%June 2026
Labor force42,875Bottom 45%June 2026
Labor force participation62.6%Top 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$77,150Top 25%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$59,750Top 21%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.3%Bottom 30%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.0%Bottom 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.12.6
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.0% 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
2021202220232024140k128k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $139,804 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 — Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides60,350$34,320
Management Analysts25,600$82,990
Fast Food and Counter Workers24,910$42,860
Registered Nurses23,590$171,460
Retail Salespersons22,970$38,100
Office Clerks, General21,340$48,940

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 23.3 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
16
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
23.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Folsom HighFolsom-Cordova Unified2,90124.8
Vista del Lago HighFolsom-Cordova Unified1,78224.4
Sutter MiddleFolsom-Cordova Unified1,62823.9
Folsom MiddleFolsom-Cordova Unified1,50826.5
Theodore Judah ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified60022.2
Mangini Ranch ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified59823.0
Natoma Station ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified54820.3
Russell Ranch ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified50321.9
Folsom Hills ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified49620.7
Gold Ridge ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified49622.5
Sandra J. Gallardo ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified49020.4
Oak Chan ElementaryFolsom-Cordova Unified43721.9

17.4% 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 California’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 $2,352 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.4 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
20.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,352
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$755,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.40Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate69.7%Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±65130,868Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$47$2,352Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$17,840$755,200Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.2%Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate2.9%Bottom 19%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
59/ 100
Top 35% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing — 2 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 grown 9% since 2020, reaching 88,091 in 2024.

At 5.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
421
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
5.0
Top 29% nationally
Year over year
−43%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
44.7%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202488k81k
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
2020202120222023202420252k497
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+26%).

Weather & climate

9 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 41°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 19.2 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 51, in the Moderate band, and about 15 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

30°50°70°90°110°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station SACRAMENTO 5 ESE, 16.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index84.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation19.2"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low41°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high94°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months91991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100152024 calendar year
Median air quality index51.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing29°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
51
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
84
90th percentile index
Days above 100
15
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

63 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, drought and heat wave.

DroughtElevated
EarthquakeHigh
Heat waveModerate
WildfireModerate

Low or minimal exposure: inland flooding, landslide, volcanic activity, tornado, lightning, hail, strong wind, winter weather, avalanche.

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.

Sacramento County records 5.4 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 9.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 29.0 per 100,000 residents in Sacramento County.

Homicide
5.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
9.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
29.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
12.4
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 Sacramento 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 Folsom rather than Folsom 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

9 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 14 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Mc Clellan AirfieldMCC14 mi10,599 ft
Sacramento IntlSMF24 mi8,605 ft
Stockton MetroSCK54 mi10,245 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
71
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Other cities in Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
SacramentoSacramento County528,70664vs Folsom
Elk GroveSacramento County179,15568vs Folsom
RosevillePlacer County155,95565vs Folsom
Arden-ArcadeSacramento County94,994vs Folsom
Citrus HeightsSacramento County86,99561vs Folsom
Rancho CordovaSacramento County81,84967vs Folsom
CarmichaelSacramento County76,948vs Folsom
RocklinPlacer County73,32768vs Folsom
DavisYolo County66,97852vs Folsom
WoodlandYolo County61,85452vs Folsom
West SacramentoYolo County54,92760vs Folsom
LincolnPlacer County52,95666vs Folsom

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.

Compare

Put Folsom side by side with a similar place.

Folsom vs Fair OaksFolsom vs Elk GroveFolsom vs VineyardFolsom vs Alexandria

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 Folsom

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9563079,484$139,64272
956714,432$232,70072