81003Pueblo, Colorado

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 81003.

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
Opportunity6180th of 6,210 published ZIP areas10
Housing affordability4866th of 6,685 published ZIP areas64
Climate6655th of 6,789 published ZIP areas53
Physical resilienceTop 32% of 6,709 published ZIP areas72
AccessTop 15% of 6,791 published ZIP areas99
Economic stability6494th of 6,742 published ZIP areas22
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 6.1% and the Opportunity signal places 81003 in the bottom 1%.

Rent takes 26% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 4.5 times that income.

A major airport is 9 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
15,194
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$43,705
Bottom 9% nationally
Density
1,242/sq mi
12.2 sq mi of land
Median age
36.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Pueblo
Colorado
Metro area
Pueblo, CO
Nearest major airport
PUB
9 mi · Pueblo Meml
Median home value
$198,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 6.1% is lower than 7% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 3.3% over the past year, to 42,488 employed residents.

Median household income of $43,705 is below 91% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,444$43,705Bottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,020$23,249Bottom 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate26.6%Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.2 minBottom 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher17.5%Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment42,488Bottom 42%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-5.8%Bottom 2%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.3%Bottom 5%June 2026
Labor force45,253Bottom 43%June 2026
Labor force participation43.9%Bottom 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$62,480Bottom 29%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,940Bottom 36%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.3%Top 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate6.1%Top 7%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202444k38k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $43,705 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 — Pueblo, CO
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers2,160$31,100
Home Health and Personal Care Aides2,130$35,740
Registered Nurses2,040$95,720
Retail Salespersons1,950$35,580
Cashiers1,710$34,050
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand1,410$47,100

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 does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Pueblo, CO, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 18.4 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Chavez/Huerta K-12 Preparatory Academy · charterPueblo School District No. 60 in the county of Pueblo and84424.8
Nettie S Freed K-8 Expeditionary SchoolPueblo School District No. 60 in the county of Pueblo and42513.3
Morton Elementary SchoolPueblo School District No. 60 in the county of Pueblo and37417.0
Irving Elementary SchoolPueblo School District No. 60 in the county of Pueblo and32617.2
The Connect Charter School · charterPueblo County School District 7025218.0
Pueblo Youth Service CenterPueblo School District No. 60 in the county of Pueblo and15

81.0% 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 Colorado’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 $956 takes 26% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.5 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
26.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$956
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$198,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.55Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate46.8%Bottom 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3506,324Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$87$956Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$15,581$198,700Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income26.2%Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.8%Bottom 41%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

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 15°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 12.0 inches, including 28.3 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 44, in the Good band, and about 8 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

0°20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station PUEBLO MEM AP, 8.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.1"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index74.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation12.0"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall28.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low15°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high93°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10082024 calendar year
Median air quality index44.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing46°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
44
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
74
90th percentile index
Days above 100
8
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

72 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HailHigh
WildfireElevated
Heat waveModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: lightning, winter weather, cold wave, inland flooding, tornado, earthquake, strong wind, drought, landslide, ice storm, volcanic activity.

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.

Pueblo County records 11.8 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 31.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 39.0 per 100,000 residents in Pueblo County.

Homicide
11.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
31.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
39.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
30.7
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 Pueblo 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 81003 rather than 81003 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

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

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Pueblo MemlPUB9 mi10,498 ft
City of Colorado Springs MuniCOS37 mi13,500 ft
Central Colorado RgnlAEJ87 mi8,303 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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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)
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.

81003 vs Pueblo

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

81003
Pueblo
Median household income
$43,705
vs
$56,664
Per capita income
$23,249
vs
$31,726
Population density
1,242/sq mi
vs
1,970/sq mi
Median home value
$198,700
vs
$247,200
Median gross rent
$956
vs
$1,082
Homeownership rate
46.8%
vs
61.4%
Bachelor's degree or higher
17.5%
vs
23.7%
Poverty rate
26.6%
vs
17.5%
Median age
36.1
vs
38.4

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.