Stamford, Connecticut
Area Profile
137,144 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Stamford.
Missing required signal: resilience. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.
Unemployment is 4.3% and median household income $111,586, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.
Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 887 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 16% on the prior year.
Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 5.6 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 24% of it.
At a glance
Jobs & opportunity
Unemployment of 4.3% is lower than 51% of the 3,904 measured US cities.
Employment fell 4.7% over the past year, to 75,474 employed residents.
52% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 90% of measured US cities.
Household income is higher than at least 87% of measured US cities.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income ±$4,563 | $111,586 | Top 13%of 29,573 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per capita income ±$3,193 | $67,068 | Top 7%of 31,420 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Poverty rate | 10.1% | Bottom 47%of 31,900 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Average commute | 30.5 min | Top 32%of 31,543 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 51.7% | Top 10%of 31,919 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Employment | 75,474 | Top 43%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Employment change (3 years) | -4.6% | Bottom 4%of 3,903 | June 2026 |
| Employment change (year over year) | -4.7% | Bottom 2%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Labor force | 78,855 | Top 43%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Labor force participation | 72.0% | Top 14%of 31,933 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Unemployment change (year over year) | 1.2% | Top 2%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | 4.3% | Bottom 49%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
Schools
How it’s calculated →There are 13.0 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.
| School | District | Students | Per teacher | Math | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Westhill High School | Stamford School District | 2,224 | 14.4 | — | — |
| Stamford High School | Stamford School District | 2,102 | 14.1 | — | — |
| Strawberry Hill an ext. of Rogers International | Stamford School District | 799 | 12.3 | — | — |
| Rogers International School | Stamford School District | 780 | 15.6 | — | — |
| Rippowam Middle School | Stamford School District | 704 | 11.5 | — | — |
| Davenport Ridge School | Stamford School District | 673 | 14.3 | — | — |
| The Academy of Information Technology & Engineering | Stamford School District | 658 | 15.3 | — | — |
| Westover School | Stamford School District | 624 | 11.1 | — | — |
| Scofield Middle School | Stamford School District | 622 | 12.0 | — | — |
| Stillmeadow School | Stamford School District | 587 | 12.5 | — | — |
| Dolan School | Stamford School District | 577 | 10.9 | — | — |
| Newfield School | Stamford School District | 575 | 13.4 | — | — |
52.9% 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 Connecticut’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 $2,276 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.
A median home costs 5.6 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home price to income | 5.60 | Top 11%of 28,473 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Homeownership rate | 48.8% | Bottom 9%of 31,843 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Housing units ±961 | 58,655 | Top 1%of 32,330 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median gross rent ±$58 | $2,276 | Top 5%of 23,432 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median home value ±$12,302 | $624,400 | Top 8%of 29,342 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Rent as a share of income | 24.5% | Top 19%of 23,201 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Vacancy rate | 5.7% | Bottom 32%of 32,001 | 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 →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 3% since 2020, reaching 139,134 in 2024.
Permitting has turned upward after moving the other way the year before.
95% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.
At 6.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.
Weather & climate
5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 83°F and January a low of 22°F.
Normal annual precipitation is 47.8 inches.
| Metric | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| Annual precipitation | 47.8" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average January low | 22°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average July high | 83°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Comfortable months | 5 | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Seasonal temperature swing | 44°F | 1991-2020 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.
Safety
How it’s measured →Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.
Stamford's police department reported 154 violent offences per 100,000 residents, near the middle of places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 1,015.
Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.
Offences are reported to the FBI by Stamford’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for this 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 Stamford rather than Stamford 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.
- Taxes
- Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
- Anything about a specific address
- Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.
Access
5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 33 miles away.
| Airport | Code | Distance | Longest runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| John F Kennedy Intl | JFK | 33 mi | 14,511 ft |
| New York Stewart Intl | SWF | 41 mi | 11,817 ft |
| Newark Liberty Intl | EWR | 42 mi | 9,999 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 for | Source | Source period | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Federal Aviation Administration Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service | NASR current cycle | 28-day NASR cycle |
| safety | Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency | 2025 calendar year | Annually, with monthly revisions |
| Climate | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly) | 1991-2020 Normals | Every ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period) |
| Jobs | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics | June 2026 | Monthly |
| Demographics | U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program | July 1, 2024 estimate | Annual (vintage released each spring) |
| Development | U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey | 12 months ending July 2026 | Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month |
| Demographics, Housing, Income, Jobs | U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File) | 2024 ACS 5-Year | Annual (5-year estimates released each December) |
| schools | U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments | 2024-25 school year | Directory 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.