Shasta Lake, California

Area Profile

10,311 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Shasta Lake, in Shasta County.

42out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 2% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2778th of 3,904 published cities46
Growth2139th of 2,973 published cities37
Housing affordability2624th of 4,223 published cities73
Climate3678th of 4,223 published cities59
Physical resilience3801st of 4,182 published cities13
Access4203rd of 4,226 published cities0
Economic stability3127th of 4,226 published cities46
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 5.0% and the Opportunity signal places Shasta Lake in the bottom 29%.

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

The nearest major airport is 120 miles away, which is farther than most measured US cities.

At a glance

Population
10,311
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$67,401
Top 49% nationally
Density
946/sq mi
10.9 sq mi of land
Median age
41.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Shasta County
California
Metro area
Redding, CA
Nearest major airport
MFR
120 mi · Rogue Valley Intl/Medford
Median home value
$294,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

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

Employment fell 0.7% over the past year, to 76,923 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$13,889$67,401Top 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,475$34,465Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate13.3%Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.9 minBottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher15.3%Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment76,923Top 43%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.4%Top 12%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.7%Top 50%June 2026
Labor force80,979Top 42%June 2026
Labor force participation57.6%Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$65,320Bottom 33%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,920Bottom 32%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.3%Bottom 30%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.0%Top 25%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202467k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $67,401 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 — Redding, CA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides5,500$34,320
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,930$39,160
Cashiers1,920$34,900
Retail Salespersons1,880$36,450
Registered Nurses1,720$134,350
Office Clerks, General1,370$45,120

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 Shasta County, CA, which contains this city.

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

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
20.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Shasta LakeGateway Unified60218.8
Central Valley HighGateway Unified58322.4
Grand Oaks ElementaryGateway Unified32022.9
Gateway Educational OptionsGateway Unified7218.0
Mountain Lakes HighGateway Unified6822.7
Gateway Community DayGateway Unified126.0

77.4% 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 $1,298 takes 23% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.4 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
23.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,298
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$294,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.37Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate68.2%Bottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2684,330Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$226$1,298Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$13,204$294,400Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.1%Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.8%Bottom 37%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
37/ 100
Ranks 2139 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, measured from 2022 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 10,244 in 2024.

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

At 0.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
6
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.6
Bottom 23% nationally
Year over year
−14%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202410k10k
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
2022202320242025115.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−18%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 100°F and January a low of 38°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 33.5 inches, including 2.6 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 44, in the Good band, and about 4 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 REDDING MUNI AP, 11.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND6.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index67.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation33.5"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall2.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low38°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high100°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10042024 calendar year
Median air quality index44.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing37°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
44
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
67
90th percentile index
Days above 100
4
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

13 / 100
Physical resilience

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

WildfireHigh
EarthquakeHigh
Inland floodingHigh
Volcanic activityModerate
Heat waveModerate
DroughtModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, winter weather, lightning, hail, tornado, strong wind, cold wave.

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.

Shasta County records 3.8 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 14.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 27.2 per 100,000 residents in Shasta County.

Homicide
3.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
14.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
27.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
18.9
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 Shasta 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 Shasta Lake rather than Shasta Lake 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

No airport meeting the AreaProfile major-airport definition lies within 100 miles; the nearest is 120 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Rogue Valley Intl/MedfordMFR120 mi8,800 ft
Sacramento IntlSMF143 mi8,605 ft
Mc Clellan AirfieldMCC148 mi10,599 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
42
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Other cities in Redding, CA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
ReddingShasta County93,40942vs Shasta Lake
AndersonShasta County11,25539vs Shasta Lake

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 Shasta Lake

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9601910,350$67,44643