Kankakee County, IL

County Profile

106,635 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Kankakee County, IL.

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.

51out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 13% of 1,225 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity1062nd of 1,255 counties measured36
Schools628th of 973 counties measured39
Growth1042nd of 1,226 counties measured30
Housing affordabilityTop 27% of 1,255 counties measured99
Climate968th of 1,254 counties measured60
Physical resilience917th of 1,255 counties measured42
Access709th of 1,255 counties measured79
Economic stabilityTop 46% of 1,255 counties measured64
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published profiles: unemployment is 5.0% and the Opportunity signal places Kankakee County in the bottom 15%.

In the public schools here, 20% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 14.6 students for every teacher.

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

At a glance

Population
106,635
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$71,281
Top 34% nationally
Density
158/sq mi
676.5 sq mi of land
Median age
39.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Kankakee County
Illinois
Metro area
Kankakee, IL
Nearest major airport
GYY
40 mi · Gary/Chicago Intl
Median home value
$192,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.0% is lower than 22% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 1.6% over the past year, to 47,540 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$2,921$71,281Top 34%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$905$36,825Top 40%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate12.2%Bottom 41%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.8 minTop 43%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher21.2%Bottom 44%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Employment47,540Top 46%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.5%Bottom 27%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.6%Bottom 29%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force50,017Top 45%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force participation61.6%Top 35%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 40%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate5.0%Top 22%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/067.24.8
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.0% 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
202120222023202471k62k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $71,281 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 — Kankakee, IL
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Registered Nurses1,390$86,220
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,220$31,220
Cashiers1,190$31,200
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand1,190$37,110
Retail Salespersons1,140$32,650
General and Operations Managers970$93,310

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.

20% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 23% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
40
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
20.4%
Bottom 41% in Illinois
Reading proficiency
23.2%
Bottom 27% in Illinois
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Bradley-Bourbonnais C High SchoolBradley Bourbonnais CHSD 3071,91415.4
Kankakee High SchoolKankakee SD 1111,36015.8
Liberty Intermediate SchoolBourbonnais SD 5371413.024%22%
Manteno Elem SchoolManteno CUSD 569413.130%32%
Manteno High SchoolManteno CUSD 558715.4
Herscher High SchoolHerscher CUSD 254215.1
Manteno Middle SchoolManteno CUSD 552011.629%39%
Bradley East Elem SchoolBradley SD 6151912.7
John Kennedy Middle Grade SchoolKankakee SD 11151920.05%17%
Kankakee Junior High SchoolKankakee SD 11150117.96%16%
Bourbonnais Upper Grade CenterBourbonnais SD 5348414.222%22%
Alan B Shepard Elem SchoolBourbonnais SD 5348315.637%32%

60.8% 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 Illinois’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 $1,097 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.7 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
18.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,097
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$192,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.70Bottom 37%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate69.9%Bottom 28%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±6945,415Top 19%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$36$1,097Top 23%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$5,640$192,600Top 46%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.5%Top 33%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate9.7%Bottom 28%of 3,2222024 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
30/ 100
Ranks 1042 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is broadly steady, 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 fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 106,410 in 2024.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 11% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 1.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
132
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.2
Bottom 20% nationally
Year over year
−13%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
11.4%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024107k106k
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
202220232024202514660
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+12%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 85°F and January a low of 16°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 41.7 inches, including 20.7 inches of snow.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station KANKAKEE METRO WASTEWATER, 1.3 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation41.7"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall20.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low16°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing50°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

42 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Inland floodingHigh
TornadoElevated
EarthquakeModerate
Heat waveModerate

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

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.

Kankakee 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 17.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.0 per 100,000 residents in Kankakee County.

Homicide
4.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.0
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
16.0
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
15.1
per 100,000 residents

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 Kankakee 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 Kankakee County rather than Kankakee 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
Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.
Taxes and full cost of living
No public source publishes either with national coverage and a method open enough to check. 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. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 40 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Gary/Chicago IntlGYY40 mi8,859 ft
Chicago O'Hare IntlORD58 mi11,245 ft
Central Il Rgnl/Bloomington-NormalBMI72 mi8,000 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
51
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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

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.