96720Hilo, Hawaii

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 96720.

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
Schools3205th of 4,422 ZIP areas measured34
Housing affordability4780th of 6,685 ZIP areas measured65
ClimateTop 4% of 6,789 ZIP areas measured100
Physical resilience6019th of 6,709 ZIP areas measured14
Access4314th of 6,791 ZIP areas measured89
Economic stability5115th of 6,742 ZIP areas measured44
The quick read

In the public schools here, 25% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 14.4 students for every teacher.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, earthquake and volcanic activity.

A major airport is 13 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
52,979
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$80,938
Top 37% nationally
Density
184/sq mi
287.8 sq mi of land
Median age
42.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Hilo
Hawaii
Metro area
Hilo-Kailua, HI
Nearest major airport
ITO
13 mi · Hilo Intl
Median home value
$485,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

34% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 73% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$6,646$80,938Top 37%of 31,2952024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,930$41,213Top 36%of 32,8222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.3%Top 34%of 32,9702024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.4 minBottom 18%of 32,8872024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher34.3%Top 27%of 33,1932024 ACS 5-Year
Labor force participation58.6%Bottom 42%of 33,2522024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202481k70k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $80,938 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.

25% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 41% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.4 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
16
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
25.0%
Bottom 24% in Hawaii
Reading proficiency
41.3%
Bottom 29% in Hawaii
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Waiakea High SchoolHawaii Department of Education1,18315.4
Hilo High SchoolHawaii Department of Education1,17015.8
Waiakea Intermediate SchoolHawaii Department of Education85715.622%47%
Waiakea Elementary SchoolHawaii Department of Education70615.032%45%
Waiakeawaena Elementary SchoolHawaii Department of Education66912.927%44%
Hilo Intermediate SchoolHawaii Department of Education56014.427%47%
Hilo Union Elementary SchoolHawaii Department of Education44912.115%30%
Ernest Bowen DeSilva Elementary SchoolHawaii Department of Education42218.357%67%
Chiefess Kapiolani Elementary SchoolHawaii Department of Education35414.29%21%
Connections - New Century PCS · charterHawaii Department of Education35212.112%27%
Keaukaha Elementary SchoolHawaii Department of Education34112.221%34%
Ka Umeke Kaeo - PCS · charterHawaii Department of Education29212.717%25%

53.3% 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 Hawaii’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 $1,428 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.0 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
21.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.0×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,428
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$485,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income6.00Top 10%of 30,4042024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate66.5%Bottom 24%of 32,9102024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±66420,182Top 3%of 33,7722024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$87$1,428Top 24%of 26,6182024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$14,291$485,400Top 14%of 30,9412024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income21.2%Top 29%of 26,4702024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.2%Bottom 39%of 33,0282024 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

12 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 79°F and January a low of 61°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 151.2 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 21, 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 HILO 5 S, 9.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND17.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index33.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation151.2"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low61°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high79°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months121991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index21.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing6°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
21
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
33
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

14 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, earthquake and volcanic activity.

Volcanic activityHigh
EarthquakeHigh
Inland floodingHigh
WildfireElevated
TsunamiElevated

Low or minimal exposure: lightning, landslide, hurricane, coastal flooding, drought, ice storm, tornado, hail, cold wave, strong wind, winter weather.

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.

Hawaii County records 3.6 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 5.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 17.8 per 100,000 residents in Hawaii County.

Homicide
3.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
5.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
17.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
15.9
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 Hawaii 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 96720 rather than 96720 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

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 13 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Hilo IntlITO13 mi9,803 ft
Daniel K Inouye IntlHNL208 mi12,360 ft
Kalaeloa (John Rodgers Fld)JRF216 mi8,365 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)
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.

96720 vs Hilo

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

96720
Hilo
Median household income
$80,938
vs
$81,779
Per capita income
$41,213
vs
$41,708
Population density
184/sq mi
vs
940/sq mi
Median home value
$485,400
vs
$483,000
Median gross rent
$1,428
vs
$1,427
Homeownership rate
66.5%
vs
66.1%
Bachelor's degree or higher
34.3%
vs
34.6%
Poverty rate
14.3%
vs
14.5%
Median age
42.8
vs
42.7

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.