Nipomo, California

Area Profile

17,516 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Nipomo, in San Luis Obispo County.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2772nd of 3,904 published cities46
Housing affordability3507th of 4,223 published cities57
ClimateTop 8% of 4,223 published cities89
Physical resilience3169th of 4,182 published cities31
AccessTop 40% of 4,226 published cities95
Economic stabilityTop 30% of 4,226 published cities70
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.3% and the Opportunity signal places Nipomo in the bottom 29%.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 6.6 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 23% of it.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, earthquake and drought.

At a glance

Population
17,516
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$110,022
Top 14% nationally
Density
1,162/sq mi
15.1 sq mi of land
Median age
37.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
San Luis Obispo County
California
Metro area
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA
Nearest major airport
SMX
9 mi · Santa Maria Pub/Capt G Allan Hancock Fld
Median home value
$723,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.3% is lower than 51% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 3.2% over the past year, to 126,696 employed residents.

Household income is higher than at least 86% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$13,665$110,022Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,245$40,924Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate5.7%Bottom 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute27.9 minTop 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher25.0%Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment126,696Top 36%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.5%Bottom 25%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.2%Bottom 5%June 2026
Labor force132,442Top 36%June 2026
Labor force participation65.9%Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$70,150Top 45%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$50,770Bottom 46%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 35%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.3%Bottom 49%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024110k89k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $110,022 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 — San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides4,160$34,320
Retail Salespersons3,390$37,780
Fast Food and Counter Workers3,310$42,350
Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse3,100$36,570
Cashiers3,010$36,550
Office Clerks, General2,860$46,110

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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for San Luis Obispo County, CA, which contains this city.

There are 20.5 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
5
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
20.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Nipomo HighLucia Mar Unified81919.0
Dana ElementaryLucia Mar Unified61220.4
Lange (Dorothea) ElementaryLucia Mar Unified57723.1
Nipomo ElementaryLucia Mar Unified43620.8
Central Coast New Tech HighLucia Mar Unified31819.9

71.0% 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 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 $2,106 takes 23% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.6 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
23.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,106
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$723,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income6.58Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate65.6%Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3876,076Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$167$2,106Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$44,284$723,700Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.0%Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.3%Bottom 35%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 →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

9 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 73°F and January a low of 41°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 13.3 inches.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station SANTA MARIA PUBLIC AP, 9.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation13.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low41°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high73°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months91991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing12°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

31 / 100
Physical resilience

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

DroughtHigh
LandslideModerate
WildfireElevated
EarthquakeHigh
Inland floodingHigh
Heat waveModerate
TsunamiModerate

Low or minimal exposure: coastal flooding, lightning, hail, tornado, avalanche, strong wind, winter weather.

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.

San Luis Obispo County records 2.8 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 5.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 24.1 per 100,000 residents in San Luis Obispo County.

Homicide
2.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
5.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
24.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
11.0
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 San Luis Obispo 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 Nipomo rather than Nipomo 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 9 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Santa Maria Pub/Capt G Allan Hancock FldSMX9 mi8,004 ft
Meadows FldBFL86 mi10,849 ft
Van NuysVNY127 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
Your Score

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

Other cities in San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
San Luis ObispoSan Luis Obispo County48,49152vs Nipomo
El Paso de Robles (Paso Robles)San Luis Obispo County31,44650vs Nipomo
AtascaderoSan Luis Obispo County29,71251vs Nipomo
Arroyo GrandeSan Luis Obispo County18,37251vs Nipomo
Los OsosSan Luis Obispo County14,166vs Nipomo
Grover BeachSan Luis Obispo County12,60449vs Nipomo
Morro BaySan Luis Obispo County10,69249vs Nipomo

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 Nipomo side by side with a similar place.

Nipomo vs Los OsosNipomo vs SumnerNipomo vs East LakeNipomo vs Alamo

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
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
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 Nipomo

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9344421,611$110,867