Riviera Beach, Florida

Area Profile

38,657 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Riviera Beach, in Palm Beach County.

47out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 9% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3311th of 3,904 published cities38
Schools2566th of 2,668 published cities13
GrowthTop 4% of 2,973 published cities81
Housing affordability3820th of 4,223 published cities49
ClimateTop 11% of 4,223 published cities83
Physical resilience3703rd of 4,182 published cities18
AccessTop 8% of 4,226 published cities99
Economic stability3839th of 4,226 published cities32
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 5.4% and the Opportunity signal places Riviera Beach in the bottom 15%.

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 439 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 1809% on the prior year.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by hurricane, lightning and tornado.

At a glance

Population
38,657
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$68,060
Top 48% nationally
Density
4,670/sq mi
8.3 sq mi of land
Median age
39.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Palm Beach County
Florida
Metro area
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL
Nearest major airport
DJT
7 mi · President Donald J Trump Intl
Median home value
$354,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.4% is lower than 15% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.8% over the past year, to 17,805 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,975$68,060Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,075$36,329Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate18.4%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.3 minBottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher28.9%Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment17,805Bottom 21%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.6%Bottom 25%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.8%Top 50%June 2026
Labor force18,820Bottom 21%June 2026
Labor force participation59.9%Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$67,190Bottom 42%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,640Bottom 27%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.7%Top 19%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.4%Top 15%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.83.2
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.4% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202468k51k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $68,060 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 — Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Retail Salespersons91,370$34,330
General and Operations Managers74,960$105,640
Customer Service Representatives63,440$39,560
Registered Nurses61,670$91,380
Office Clerks, General61,160$44,730
Waiters and Waitresses57,830$36,070

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.

33% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 27% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
33.4%
Bottom 9% in Florida
Reading proficiency
26.6%
Bottom 1% in Florida
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
SUNCOAST COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOLPALM BEACH1,52218.6
JOHN F. KENNEDY MIDDLE SCHOOLPALM BEACH82116.440%27%
INLET GROVE COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL · charterPALM BEACH71418.8
DR. MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE ELEMENTARYPALM BEACH52915.629%24%
WEST RIVIERA ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPALM BEACH52417.525%23%
LINCOLN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPALM BEACH39714.231%29%
WASHINGTON ELEMENTARY MAGNET SCHOOLPALM BEACH24113.444%35%
RIVIERA BEACH PREPARATORY & ACHIEVEMENT ACADEMYPALM BEACH1206.3
BODWELL ACADEMY · charterPALM BEACH499.8

56.7% 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 $1,702 takes 30% of median household income, above the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.2 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
30.0%
Above the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,702
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$354,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.21Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate62.2%Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±54518,039Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$106$1,702Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$13,966$354,500Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income30.0%Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate22.8%Top 20%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
81/ 100
Top 4% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, measured from 2020 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 grown 5% since 2020, reaching 39,620 in 2024.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

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 11.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
439
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
11.4
Top 10% nationally
Year over year
+1809%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
94.8%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202440k38k
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
2020202220232024202536820
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−52%).

Weather & climate

8 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 58°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 61.7 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 43, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station WEST PALM BEACH INTL AP, 6.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND8.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index57.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation61.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low58°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months81991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index43.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing17°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
43
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
57
90th percentile index
Days above 100
0
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

18 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane, lightning and tornado.

HurricaneElevated
LightningModerate
TornadoModerate
Coastal floodingModerate
Cold waveModerate
LandslideModerate

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

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.

Palm Beach County records 4.7 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 11.1 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 13.8 per 100,000 residents in Palm Beach County.

Homicide
4.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
11.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
13.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
14.4
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 Palm Beach 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 Riviera Beach rather than Riviera Beach 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

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

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
President Donald J Trump IntlDJT7 mi10,001 ft
Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood IntlFLL49 mi8,000 ft
Miami-Opa Locka ExecOPF62 mi8,002 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
47
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Other cities in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
MiamiMiami-Dade County459,74553vs Riviera Beach
HialeahMiami-Dade County226,16552vs Riviera Beach
Fort LauderdaleBroward County185,60448vs Riviera Beach
Pembroke PinesBroward County173,19446vs Riviera Beach
HollywoodBroward County155,08245vs Riviera Beach
MiramarBroward County138,60054vs Riviera Beach
Coral SpringsBroward County136,10349vs Riviera Beach
West Palm BeachPalm Beach County122,29051vs Riviera Beach
Pompano BeachBroward County114,14744vs Riviera Beach
Miami GardensMiami-Dade County113,17745vs Riviera Beach
DavieBroward County108,34650vs Riviera Beach
Boca RatonPalm Beach County100,23454vs Riviera Beach

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
2019-20 school year; 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 Riviera Beach

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
3340430,912$65,06346