Lee County, IL

County Profile

33,869 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Lee 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.

53out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 19% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity947th of 1,255 counties42
Schools588th of 973 counties42
Growth1184th of 1,226 counties18
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties100
Climate1049th of 1,254 counties58
Physical resilience647th of 1,255 counties60
Access1003rd of 1,255 counties64
Economic stability792nd of 1,255 counties53
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published profiles: unemployment is 4.5% and the Opportunity signal places Lee County in the bottom 25%.

In the public schools here, 21% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 13.9 students for every teacher.

Residential permitting has slowed: 26 units authorized over the past twelve months, 35% below the prior year.

At a glance

Population
33,869
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$70,292
Top 37% nationally
Density
47/sq mi
724.8 sq mi of land
Median age
43.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Lee County
Illinois
Metro area
Dixon, IL
Nearest major airport
MLI
66 mi · Quad Cities Intl
Median home value
$154,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.5% is lower than 38% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 0.6% over the past year, to 14,294 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$2,918$70,292Top 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,814$35,945Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate11.8%Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute25.6 minBottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher19.4%Bottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment14,294Bottom 11%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-2.5%Bottom 17%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.6%Top 49%June 2026
Labor force14,960Bottom 11%June 2026
Labor force participation55.7%Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.3%Top 37%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.5%Top 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.54.0
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.5% 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
202120222023202470k62k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $70,292 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.

21% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 23% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 13.9 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
18
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.9
across all schools here
Math proficiency
20.8%
Bottom 44% in Illinois
Reading proficiency
22.8%
Bottom 24% in Illinois
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Dixon High SchoolDixon USD 17076017.3
Reagan Middle SchoolDixon USD 17058516.312%17%
Washington Elem SchoolDixon USD 17042415.7
Jefferson Elem SchoolDixon USD 17034413.817%12%
Madison SchoolDixon USD 17032314.715%22%
Amboy Central Elem SchoolAmboy CUSD 27228313.541%50%
Amboy High SchoolAmboy CUSD 27222911.4
Ashton-Franklin Center Elem SchAshton-Franklin Center CUSD 27521810.916%28%
Ashton-Franklin Center HSAshton-Franklin Center CUSD 27521612.735%15%
Amboy Jr High SchoolAmboy CUSD 27221012.425%24%
Paw Paw Elem SchoolPaw Paw CUSD 271879.7
Steward Elementary SchoolSteward ESD 220576.3

50.5% 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 $894 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
15.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$894
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$154,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.20Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate73.6%Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±6914,995Top 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$50$894Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$7,304$154,600Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income15.3%Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate11.1%Bottom 35%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
18/ 100
Ranks 1184 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 fallen 2% since 2020, reaching 33,544 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 0.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
26
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.8
Bottom 11% nationally
Year over year
−35%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202434k34k
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
20222023202420254319
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+63%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 82°F and January a low of 13°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 37.4 inches.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station SHABBONA 5 NNE, 24.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation37.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low13°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°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

60 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Strong windElevated
DroughtModerate
HailModerate
TornadoElevated
Inland floodingModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, earthquake, ice storm, landslide, heat wave, winter weather, lightning, 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.

Lee County records 0.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 8.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 7.7 per 100,000 residents in Lee County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
7.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
15.8
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 Lee 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 Lee County rather than Lee 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

6 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 66 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Quad Cities IntlMLI66 mi10,002 ft
Chicago O'Hare IntlORD73 mi11,245 ft
General Downing - Peoria IntlPIA78 mi10,104 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
53
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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.

Cities in Lee County, IL