31535Douglas, Georgia

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 31535.

64out of 100
Area Score
Top 36% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 47% of 6,210 published ZIP areas56
SchoolsTop 47% of 4,422 published ZIP areas54
GrowthTop 38% of 5,428 published ZIP areas57
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 published ZIP areas100
ClimateTop 30% of 6,789 published ZIP areas75
Physical resilience3642nd of 6,709 published ZIP areas54
Access5926th of 6,791 published ZIP areas71
Economic stability5380th of 6,742 published ZIP areas41
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.9% and median household income $65,629, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published ZIP profiles.

In the public schools here, 33% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 15.2 students for every teacher.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 15% of median household income and the median home is 2.2 times it.

At a glance

Population
13,463
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$65,629
Bottom 40% nationally
Density
143/sq mi
94.0 sq mi of land
Median age
34.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Douglas
Georgia
Metro area
Douglas, GA
Nearest major airport
VLD
53 mi · Valdosta Rgnl
Median home value
$144,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 71% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

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

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$7,914$65,629Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,393$29,782Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate17.9%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.1 minBottom 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher14.0%Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment17,396Bottom 15%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.6%Bottom 40%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.2%Top 11%June 2026
Labor force18,099Bottom 15%June 2026
Labor force participation60.6%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 29%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202466k49k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $65,629 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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Douglas, GA, the city containing this ZIP code.

33% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 31% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
2
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
32.5%
Top 43% in Georgia
Reading proficiency
31.0%
Bottom 48% in Georgia
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Indian Creek ElementaryCoffee County67515.047%42%
Satilla Elementary SchoolCoffee County66115.418%20%

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 $813 takes 15% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.2 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
14.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$813
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$144,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.20Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate71.9%Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4635,382Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$80$813Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$29,760$144,700Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income14.9%Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate9.3%Bottom 43%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
57/ 100
Top 38% of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

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

At 3.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
39
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
3.3
Top 45% nationally
Year over year
+5%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Douglas, GA, the city containing this ZIP code.

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, 21.9 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

54 / 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 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.

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 31535 rather than 31535 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

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 53 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Valdosta RgnlVLD53 mi8,003 ft
Brunswick Golden IslesBQK84 mi8,001 ft
Lake City GatewayLCQ90 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
64
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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.

31535 vs Douglas

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

31535
Douglas
Median household income
$65,629
vs
$34,408
Per capita income
$29,782
vs
$21,605
Population density
143/sq mi
vs
813/sq mi
Median home value
$144,700
vs
$133,300
Median gross rent
$813
vs
$680
Homeownership rate
71.9%
vs
45.7%
Bachelor's degree or higher
14.0%
vs
16.5%
Poverty rate
17.9%
vs
29.7%
Median age
34.6
vs
31.2

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.