Lincoln, Illinois

Area Profile

13,281 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Lincoln, in Logan County.

62out of 100
Area Score
Top 47% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3458th of 3,904 cities measured35
SchoolsTop 25% of 2,668 cities measured71
GrowthTop 48% of 2,973 cities measured51
Housing affordabilityTop 8% of 4,223 cities measured100
Climate3414th of 4,223 cities measured61
Physical resilienceTop 46% of 4,182 cities measured62
Access2739th of 4,226 cities measured88
Economic stability3042nd of 4,226 cities measured48
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.5% and the Opportunity signal places Lincoln in the bottom 11%.

In the public schools here, 29% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 12.5 students for every teacher.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 17% of median household income and the median home is 2.2 times it.

At a glance

Population
13,281
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$57,340
Bottom 35% nationally
Density
2,126/sq mi
6.2 sq mi of land
Median age
39.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Logan County
Illinois
Metro area
Lincoln, IL
Nearest major airport
SPI
27 mi · Abraham Lincoln Capital
Median home value
$124,300
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.5% is lower than 43% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 1.3% over the past year, to 10,338 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$2,729$57,340Bottom 35%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,607$33,380Bottom 49%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate17.0%Top 30%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.5 minBottom 16%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.3%Bottom 49%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment10,338Bottom 3%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-5.9%Bottom 2%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.3%Bottom 39%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force10,828Bottom 3%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation59.7%Bottom 47%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 45%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate4.5%Top 43%of 3,904June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202457k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $57,340 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.

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

29% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 38% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 12.5 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
29.0%
Top 40% in Illinois
Reading proficiency
38.3%
Top 24% in Illinois
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Lincoln Comm High SchoolLincoln CHSD 40476413.2
Lincoln Jr High SchoolLincoln ESD 2732111.927%57%
Chester-East Lincoln Elem SchoolChester-East Lincoln CCSD 6128812.026%40%
Northwest Elem SchoolLincoln ESD 2727114.328%31%
Washington-Monroe Elem SchoolLincoln ESD 2722413.227%26%
West Lincoln-Broadwell Elem SchWest Lincoln-Broadwell ESD 9221710.833%21%
Central Elem SchoolLincoln ESD 2718314.136%49%
Adams Elem SchoolLincoln ESD 27577.1
Lincolnland Technical Ed CtrDeWitt/Livingstn/Logan/McLean ROE0

53.5% 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 $828 takes 17% 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
17.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$828
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$124,300
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.17Bottom 28%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate56.9%Bottom 16%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±1596,357Top 9%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$19$828Bottom 32%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$11,261$124,300Bottom 29%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.3%Bottom 41%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate4.0%Bottom 24%of 32,0012024 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
51/ 100
Top 48% of 2,973 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 1% since 2020, reaching 13,047 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

96% 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 1.7 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
23
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.7
Bottom 42% nationally
Year over year
+1050%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
95.7%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202413k13k
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
20222023202420254.00.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−100%).

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 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 39.8 inches, including 19.3 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 LINCOLN, 1.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation39.8"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall19.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low18°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high86°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing49°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

62 / 100
Physical resilience

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

DroughtElevated
Strong windHigh
EarthquakeElevated
TornadoHigh
HailModerate

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

Violent crime
292
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year
Property crime
2,500
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year

Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.

Lincoln's police department reported 292 violent offences per 100,000 residents, near the middle of places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 2,500.

Logan 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 10.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.1 per 100,000 residents in Logan County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
10.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
16.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
15.7
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.

Offences are reported to the FBI by Lincoln’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Logan 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 Lincoln rather than Lincoln 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.

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 27 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Abraham Lincoln CapitalSPI27 mi8,001 ft
Central Il Rgnl/Bloomington-NormalBMI33 mi8,000 ft
General Downing - Peoria IntlPIA39 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
62
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
safetyFederal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
2025 calendar yearAnnually, with monthly revisions
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.

ZIP codes in Lincoln

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
6265618,234$62,01762