AreaProfile

33974Lehigh Acres, Florida

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 33974.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signals: opportunity, growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Housing affordability5317th of 6,685 published ZIP areas58
ClimateTop 13% of 6,789 published ZIP areas82
Physical resilience6606th of 6,709 published ZIP areas5
AccessTop 4% of 6,791 published ZIP areas100
Economic stability4449th of 6,742 published ZIP areas51
The quick read

Rent takes 30% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 4.3 times that income.

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

A major airport is 10 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
19,927
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$72,192
Top 50% nationally
Density
890/sq mi
22.4 sq mi of land
Median age
32.3
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Lehigh Acres
Florida
Metro area
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL
Nearest major airport
RSW
10 mi · Southwest Florida Intl
Median home value
$312,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$9,541$72,192Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,590$25,658Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate15.5%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute42.8 minTop 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher14.6%Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Labor force participation62.8%Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$60,050Bottom 18%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$46,780Bottom 18%2025 OEWS
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202472k55k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $72,192 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 — Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Retail Salespersons12,220$34,650
Registered Nurses8,700$82,860
Waiters and Waitresses7,980$36,660
Fast Food and Counter Workers7,260$29,360
General and Operations Managers7,150$94,730
Cashiers6,950$30,530

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

Public schools
2
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
21.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
EAST LEE COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLLEE2,12924.5
MIRROR LAKES ELEMENTARY SCHOOLLEE1,23717.449%44%

59.6% 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 Florida’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 $1,786 takes 30% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.3 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
29.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,786
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$312,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.33Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate72.7%Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3505,784Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$54$1,786Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$14,380$312,600Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income29.7%Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.0%Bottom 28%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

8 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 54°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 53.4 inches.

40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FT MYERS SW FL RGNL AP, 9.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND10.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation53.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low54°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months81991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing19°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

5 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HurricaneHigh
Coastal floodingElevated
WildfireModerate
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: lightning, inland flooding, heat wave, tornado, strong wind, drought, landslide, earthquake, hail.

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.

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.

Crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source 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. Reported crime is also easy to misread: agency participation varies year to year, and a city that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate.
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

7 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 10 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Southwest Florida IntlRSW10 mi12,000 ft
Dade-Collier Training and TransitionTNT65 mi10,499 ft
Sarasota/Bradenton IntlSRQ82 mi9,500 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
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
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)
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.

33974 vs Lehigh Acres

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

33974
Lehigh Acres
Median household income
$72,192
vs
$66,890
Per capita income
$25,658
vs
$25,707
Population density
890/sq mi
vs
1,428/sq mi
Median home value
$312,600
vs
$292,400
Median gross rent
$1,786
vs
$1,657
Homeownership rate
72.7%
vs
70.0%
Bachelor's degree or higher
14.6%
vs
14.3%
Poverty rate
15.5%
vs
17.1%
Median age
32.3
vs
34.3

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.