Coffee County, GA

County Profile

43,347 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Coffee County, GA.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

58out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 36% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity856th of 1,255 counties46
Schools668th of 973 counties36
GrowthTop 45% of 1,226 counties53
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties100
ClimateTop 23% of 1,254 counties75
Physical resilience715th of 1,255 counties55
Access977th of 1,255 counties66
Economic stability1160th of 1,255 counties28
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.9% and median household income $50,683, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

In the public schools here, 29% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 14.5 students for every teacher.

96 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, within 7% of the prior year — steady rather than turning.

At a glance

Population
43,347
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$50,683
Bottom 15% nationally
Density
73/sq mi
592.2 sq mi of land
Median age
36.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Coffee County
Georgia
Metro area
Douglas, GA
Nearest major airport
VLD
59 mi · Valdosta Rgnl
Median home value
$128,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 62% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 1.2% over the past year, to 17,396 employed residents.

Median household income of $50,683 is below 85% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,084$50,683Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,297$24,431Bottom 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate23.1%Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.1 minBottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher13.9%Bottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment17,396Bottom 18%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.6%Bottom 39%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.2%Top 14%June 2026
Labor force18,099Bottom 17%June 2026
Labor force participation53.6%Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 36%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/064.63.0
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.9% 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
202120222023202451k44k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $50,683 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.

29% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 27% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.5 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
12
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
28.9%
Bottom 37% in Georgia
Reading proficiency
27.2%
Bottom 22% in Georgia
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Coffee Middle SchoolCoffee County1,59114.627%30%
Coffee County High SchoolCoffee County1,37314.5
Indian Creek ElementaryCoffee County67515.047%42%
Satilla Elementary SchoolCoffee County66115.418%20%
Westside Elementary SchoolCoffee County62513.623%26%
Eastside Elementary SchoolCoffee County57515.120%15%
George Washington Carver Freshman CampusCoffee County49313.3
West Green Elementary SchoolCoffee County41214.235%21%
Ambrose Elementary SchoolCoffee County39114.038%31%
Nicholls Elementary SchoolCoffee County32514.127%21%
Broxton-Mary Hayes ElementaryCoffee County30413.835%31%
Wiregrass Regional College and Career AcademyCoffee County21516.5

100.0% 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 Georgia’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 $710 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.5 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
16.8%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$710
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$128,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.54Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate64.7%Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4417,495Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$60$710Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$18,630$128,900Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.8%Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate12.3%Bottom 40%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
53/ 100
Top 45% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, 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 grown 2% since 2020, reaching 43,851 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

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

At 2.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
96
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.2
Bottom 38% nationally
Year over year
+7%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202444k43k
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
202220232024202511046
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+91%).

Weather & climate

7 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 39°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 44.8 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 43, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ALMA BACON CO AP, 19.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index60.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation44.8"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low39°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high93°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index43.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing31°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
43
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
60
90th percentile index
Days above 100
1
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

55 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HurricaneElevated
DroughtModerate
EarthquakeModerate
LightningModerate
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: tornado, wildfire, heat wave, inland flooding, hail, strong wind, landslide, winter weather, ice storm.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Coffee County records 6.8 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 16.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 12.0 per 100,000 residents in Coffee County.

Homicide
6.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
16.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
12.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.7
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 Coffee 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 Coffee County rather than Coffee County 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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 59 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Valdosta RgnlVLD59 mi8,003 ft
Brunswick Golden IslesBQK84 mi8,001 ft
Lake City GatewayLCQ96 mi8,003 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
58
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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
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.

Cities in Coffee County, GA