Madison County, IL

County Profile

264,238 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Madison 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.

68out of 100
Area Score
Top 28% of 1,225 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 42% of 1,255 counties measured59
SchoolsTop 35% of 973 counties measured63
Growth666th of 1,226 counties measured47
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties measured100
ClimateTop 39% of 1,254 counties measured71
Physical resilienceTop 50% of 1,255 counties measured62
AccessTop 6% of 1,255 counties measured98
Economic stabilityTop 32% of 1,255 counties measured73
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.1% and median household income $75,793, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

In the public schools here, 26% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 15.2 students for every teacher.

A major airport is 9 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
264,238
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$75,793
Top 24% nationally
Density
369/sq mi
715.5 sq mi of land
Median age
40.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Madison County
Illinois
Metro area
St. Louis, MO-IL
Nearest major airport
ALN
9 mi · St Louis Rgnl
Median home value
$173,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.1% is lower than 54% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 0.5% over the past year, to 128,036 employed residents.

31% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 78% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$1,799$75,793Top 24%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$801$41,560Top 21%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per-capita personal income$60,131Top 38%of 1,2062023
Poverty rate11.1%Bottom 32%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.5 minTop 44%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher31.0%Top 22%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Employment128,036Top 21%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.9%Bottom 33%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.5%Top 44%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force133,514Top 21%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force participation62.7%Top 29%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 42%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate4.1%Bottom 46%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.53.3
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.1% 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
202120222023202476k67k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $75,793 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 — St. Louis, MO-IL
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
General and Operations Managers46,410$93,140
Home Health and Personal Care Aides44,200$34,490
Registered Nurses35,200$83,180
Cashiers31,130$32,380
Retail Salespersons29,750$33,820
Stockers and Order Fillers28,940$37,840

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.

26% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 27% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

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

Public schools
82
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
26.5%
Top 24% in Illinois
Reading proficiency
26.7%
Top 44% in Illinois
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Edwardsville High SchoolEdwardsville CUSD 72,34217.2
Alton High SchoolAlton CUSD 111,82318.6
Granite City High SchoolGranite City CUSD 91,75520.2
Alton Middle SchoolAlton CUSD 111,22014.211%14%
Triad High SchoolTriad CUSD 21,21816.2
Triad Middle SchoolTriad CUSD 292516.547%47%
Collinsville Middle SchoolCollinsville CUSD 1089413.311%20%
Liberty Middle SchoolEdwardsville CUSD 788816.842%32%
Dorris Intermediate SchCollinsville CUSD 1087113.812%21%
Coolidge Junior High SchGranite City CUSD 985418.2
Highland High SchoolHighland CUSD 584415.1
Grigsby Intermediate SchoolGranite City CUSD 981817.8

45.5% 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 $1,024 takes 16% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.3 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
16.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,024
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$173,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.28Bottom 20%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate74.2%Bottom 48%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±98119,168Top 8%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$23$1,024Top 29%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$2,415$173,000Bottom 46%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.2%Bottom 40%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.6%Bottom 17%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
47/ 100
Ranks 666 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, measured from 2020 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 263,017 in 2024.

At 2.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
538
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.0
Bottom 36% nationally
Year over year
+43%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
21.6%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024266k263k
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
202020212022202320242025480322
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+7%).

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 24°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 43.4 inches, including 11.2 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 49, in the Good band, and about 6 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station BELLEVILLE SIU RSCH, 21.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index71.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation43.4"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall11.2"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low24°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10062024 calendar year
Median air quality index49.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing45°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
49
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
71
90th percentile index
Days above 100
6
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

62 / 100
Physical resilience

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

TornadoModerate
HailElevated
EarthquakeElevated
LightningModerate
Inland floodingModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, cold wave, winter weather, landslide, ice storm, drought, strong wind, 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 — they say nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Madison County records 3.9 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 11.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 19.8 per 100,000 residents in Madison County.

Homicide
3.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
11.4
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
19.8
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
18.6
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 Madison 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 Madison County rather than Madison 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
Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. 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 9 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
St Louis RgnlALN9 mi8,099 ft
St Louis Lambert IntlSTL26 mi11,020 ft
Abraham Lincoln CapitalSPI71 mi8,001 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
68
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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)
IncomeU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Regional price parities and county personal income
2023Annually, each December
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.