McLean County, IL
County Profile
171,556 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for McLean 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.
Unemployment is 4.0% and median household income $79,905, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.
Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published profiles, placing McLean County in the top 20% for physical resilience.
A major airport is 4 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.
At a glance
Jobs & opportunity
Unemployment of 4.0% is lower than 58% of the 1,255 measured US locations.
Employment fell 1.7% over the past year, to 87,025 employed residents.
47% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 96% of measured US locations.
| Metric | Value | Compared with peers | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income ±$2,544 | $79,905 | Top 18% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per capita income ±$1,318 | $43,372 | Top 16% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Poverty rate | 12.9% | Bottom 47% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Average commute | 19.7 min | Bottom 14% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 47.2% | Top 4% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Employment | 87,025 | Top 30% | June 2026 |
| Employment change (3 years) | -2.3% | Bottom 19% | June 2026 |
| Employment change (year over year) | -1.7% | Bottom 26% | June 2026 |
| Labor force | 90,692 | Top 30% | June 2026 |
| Labor force participation | 64.8% | Top 19% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Unemployment change (year over year) | 0.2% | Top 40% | June 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | 4.0% | Bottom 42% | June 2026 |
| Occupation | People employed | Median annual wage |
|---|---|---|
| Fast Food and Counter Workers | 2,430 | $31,200 |
| Registered Nurses | 1,990 | $79,970 |
| Cashiers | 1,980 | $31,200 |
| Retail Salespersons | 1,910 | $31,670 |
| General and Operations Managers | 1,900 | $93,250 |
| Software Developers | 1,570 | $123,320 |
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.
Schools
How it’s calculated →27% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 30% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.
There are 13.8 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.
| School | District | Students | Per teacher | Math | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal Community High School | McLean County USD 5 | 2,079 | 15.2 | — | — |
| Normal Community West High School | McLean County USD 5 | 1,590 | 15.1 | — | — |
| Bloomington High School | Bloomington SD 87 | 1,369 | 13.7 | — | — |
| Bloomington Jr High School | Bloomington SD 87 | 1,050 | 13.1 | 12% | 22% |
| Evans Junior High School | McLean County USD 5 | 778 | 14.1 | 22% | 22% |
| Kingsley Jr High School | McLean County USD 5 | 730 | 14.0 | 27% | 32% |
| University High School | ISU Laboratory Schools | 624 | 15.2 | — | — |
| Benjamin Elem School | McLean County USD 5 | 607 | 18.4 | 58% | 44% |
| Parkside Jr High School | McLean County USD 5 | 598 | 12.0 | 22% | 17% |
| Chiddix Jr High School | McLean County USD 5 | 597 | 13.0 | 27% | 32% |
| Grove Elementary School | McLean County USD 5 | 519 | 17.9 | 47% | 45% |
| Olympia High School | Olympia CUSD 16 | 495 | 13.4 | — | — |
39.7% 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 $1,009 takes 15% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.
A median home costs 2.6 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.
| Metric | Value | Compared with peers | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home price to income | 2.61 | Bottom 33% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Homeownership rate | 65.1% | Bottom 15% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Housing units ±125 | 75,305 | Top 12% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median gross rent ±$30 | $1,009 | Top 30% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median home value ±$3,688 | $208,400 | Top 41% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Rent as a share of income | 15.2% | Bottom 27% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Vacancy rate | 6.8% | Bottom 13% | 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 →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 been broadly flat since 2020, at 172,069 in 2024.
68% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.
At 3.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.
Weather & climate
5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 86°F and January a low of 16°F.
Normal annual precipitation is 39.4 inches, including 20.1 inches of snow.
Air quality measures a median index of 44, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.
| Metric | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| 90th percentile air quality index | 61.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Annual precipitation | 39.4" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Annual snowfall | 20.1" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average January low | 16°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average July high | 86°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Comfortable months | 5 | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Days above AQI 100 | 1 | 2024 calendar year |
| Median air quality index | 44.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Seasonal temperature swing | 50°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
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
The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, tornado and earthquake.
Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, winter weather, ice storm, lightning, 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.
Safety
How it’s measured →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.
McLean County records 2.5 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 8.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.
Drug overdose deaths run at 8.8 per 100,000 residents in McLean County.
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 McLean 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 McLean County rather than McLean 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
3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 4 miles away.
| Airport | Code | Distance | Longest runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central Il Rgnl/Bloomington-Normal | BMI | 4 mi | 8,000 ft |
| General Downing - Peoria Intl | PIA | 46 mi | 10,104 ft |
| Abraham Lincoln Capital | SPI | 63 mi | 8,001 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.
Customize your score
What matters to you?
Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.
Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.
Similar places
Matched on AreaProfile signals, not geographyCompare
Put McLean County side by side with a similar place.
Data & methodology
| Used for | Source | Source period | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Federal Aviation Administration Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service | NASR current cycle | 28-day NASR cycle |
| Physical risk | Federal Emergency Management Agency National Risk Index | National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0) | Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current) |
| Climate | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly) | 1991-2020 Normals | Every ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period) |
| Jobs | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics | June 2026 | Monthly |
| Demographics | U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program | July 1, 2024 estimate | Annual (vintage released each spring) |
| Development | U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey | 12 months ending July 2026 | Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month |
| Demographics, Housing, Income, Jobs | U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File) | 2024 ACS 5-Year | Annual (5-year estimates released each December) |
| safety | U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics Provisional county-level mortality by intent | April, 2025 to March, 2026 | Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years |
| schools | U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments | 2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school year | Directory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them |
| Climate | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System Daily Air Quality Index by county | 2024 calendar year | Annually, 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.