Glen Carbon, Illinois

Area Profile

13,977 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Glen Carbon, in Madison County.

70out of 100
Area Score
Top 17% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 35% of 3,904 published cities63
GrowthTop 47% of 2,973 published cities52
Housing affordabilityTop 8% of 4,223 published cities100
ClimateTop 40% of 4,223 published cities72
Physical resilienceTop 48% of 4,182 published cities60
AccessTop 19% of 4,226 published cities98
Economic stabilityTop 14% of 4,226 published cities76
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.1% and median household income $97,168, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 14% of median household income and the median home is 2.9 times it.

A major airport is 10 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
13,977
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$97,168
Top 20% nationally
Density
1,353/sq mi
10.3 sq mi of land
Median age
40.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Madison County
Illinois
Metro area
St. Louis, MO-IL
Nearest major airport
ALN
10 mi · St Louis Rgnl
Median home value
$282,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.1% is lower than 59% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

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

51% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 89% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$11,182$97,168Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,789$51,575Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.9%Bottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute28.4 minTop 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher50.8%Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment128,036Top 36%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.9%Bottom 34%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.5%Top 43%June 2026
Labor force133,514Top 36%June 2026
Labor force participation66.7%Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$66,330Bottom 37%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$49,990Bottom 40%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 44%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.1%Bottom 41%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202497k86k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $97,168 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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Madison County, IL, which contains this city.

There are 17.3 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
2
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
17.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
2019-20 school year
Reading proficiency
2019-20 school year
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Albert Cassens ElementaryEdwardsville CUSD 747717.744%35%
Glen Carbon Elem SchoolEdwardsville CUSD 731816.7

18.5% 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 $1,097 takes 14% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.9 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
13.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,097
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$282,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.90Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate69.2%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2736,007Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$87$1,097Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$18,855$282,000Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income13.5%Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate2.8%Bottom 19%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
52/ 100
Top 47% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, 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 been broadly flat since 2020, at 13,883 in 2024.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 2.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
33
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.4
Top 49% nationally
Year over year
+43%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202414k14k
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
2020202120222023202420254021
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−45%).

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 89°F and January a low of 24°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 40.8 inches.

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 CAHOKIA ST LOUIS AP, 16.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index71.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation40.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low24°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high89°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10062024 calendar year
Median air quality index49.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing47°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

60 / 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 publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. 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.

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 · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
19.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
18.6
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 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 Glen Carbon rather than Glen Carbon 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

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 10 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
St Louis RgnlALN10 mi8,099 ft
St Louis Lambert IntlSTL21 mi11,020 ft
Abraham Lincoln CapitalSPI77 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
70
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Other cities in St. Louis, MO-IL

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
St. LouisSt. Louis city288,51257vs Glen Carbon
O'FallonSt. Charles County93,80177vs Glen Carbon
St. CharlesSt. Charles County71,50872vs Glen Carbon
St. PetersSt. Charles County59,09274vs Glen Carbon
FlorissantSt. Louis County51,77360vs Glen Carbon
ChesterfieldSt. Louis County49,574vs Glen Carbon
WentzvilleSt. Charles County47,06173vs Glen Carbon
BellevilleSt. Clair County41,37055vs Glen Carbon
OakvilleSt. Louis County35,333vs Glen Carbon
WildwoodSt. Louis County35,133vs Glen Carbon
University CitySt. Louis County34,68567vs Glen Carbon
O'FallonSt. Clair County32,26267vs Glen Carbon

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

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
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
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
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.

ZIP codes in Glen Carbon

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
6203414,870$101,26071