Morton Grove, Illinois
Area Profile
24,619 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Morton Grove, in Cook County.
Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 5.4% and the Opportunity signal places Morton Grove in the bottom 20%.
In the public schools here, 33% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 13.0 students for every teacher.
A major airport is 8 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.
At a glance
Jobs & opportunity
Unemployment of 5.4% is lower than 15% of the 3,904 measured US cities.
Employment fell 3.1% over the past year, to 11,871 employed residents.
55% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 91% of measured US cities.
Household income is higher than at least 87% of measured US cities.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income ±$8,932 | $111,116 | Top 13%of 29,573 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per capita income ±$3,505 | $50,636 | Top 17%of 31,420 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Poverty rate | 7.3% | Bottom 35%of 31,900 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Average commute | 30.7 min | Top 31%of 31,543 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 55.2% | Top 9%of 31,919 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Employment | 11,871 | Bottom 6%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Employment change (3 years) | -0.8% | Bottom 36%of 3,903 | June 2026 |
| Employment change (year over year) | -3.1% | Bottom 5%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Labor force | 12,554 | Bottom 6%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Labor force participation | 62.1% | Top 45%of 31,933 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Mean annual wage | $73,380 | Top 36%of 3,658 | 2025 OEWS |
| Median annual wage | $54,720 | Top 39%of 3,658 | 2025 OEWS |
| Unemployment change (year over year) | 1.0% | Top 5%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | 5.4% | Top 15%of 3,904 | June 2026 |
| Occupation | People employed | Median annual wage |
|---|---|---|
| Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | 157,920 | $40,550 |
| General and Operations Managers | 122,930 | $109,390 |
| Home Health and Personal Care Aides | 108,520 | $38,180 |
| Registered Nurses | 100,240 | $100,490 |
| Cashiers | 99,240 | $35,010 |
| Fast Food and Counter Workers | 97,280 | $34,630 |
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 →33% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 33% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.
There are 13.0 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.
| School | District | Students | Per teacher | Math | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Park View Elem School | Morton Grove SD 70 | 885 | 12.5 | 43% | 48% |
| Thomas Edison Elem School | Skokie SD 69 | 605 | 13.2 | 17% | 17% |
| Melzer School | East Maine SD 63 | 395 | 12.3 | 34% | 25% |
| Hynes Elem School | Golf ESD 67 | 325 | 14.8 | — | — |
| Golf Middle School | Golf ESD 67 | 306 | 13.9 | — | — |
| Julia S Molloy Education Center | Niles Twp District for Spec Educ | 0 | — | — | — |
| NTDSE Sat Program | Niles Twp District for Spec Educ | 0 | — | — | — |
41.1% 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 $2,164 takes 23% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.
A median home costs 3.5 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.
| Metric | Value | Compared nationally | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home price to income | 3.50 | Top 36%of 28,473 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Homeownership rate | 85.2% | Top 31%of 31,843 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Housing units ±376 | 9,624 | Top 6%of 32,330 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median gross rent ±$250 | $2,164 | Top 6%of 23,432 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median home value ±$11,429 | $389,100 | Top 19%of 29,342 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Rent as a share of income | 23.4% | Top 23%of 23,201 | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Vacancy rate | 4.2% | Bottom 25%of 32,001 | 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 fallen 3% since 2020, reaching 24,467 in 2024.
New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.
At 1.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.
Weather & climate
5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 84°F and January a low of 18°F.
Normal annual precipitation is 32.3 inches.
Air quality measures a median index of 54, in the Moderate band, and about 11 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.
| Metric | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| 90th percentile air quality index | 84.0 | 2024 calendar year |
| Annual precipitation | 32.3" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average January low | 18°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average July high | 84°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Comfortable months | 5 | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Days above AQI 100 | 11 | 2024 calendar year |
| Median air quality index | 54.0 | 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 and earthquake.
Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, cold wave, tornado, heat wave, strong wind, hail, lightning, ice storm, landslide, wildfire, hurricane, coastal flooding, drought.
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.
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.
Cook County records 10.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.
Firearm deaths of all intents run at 12.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.
Drug overdose deaths run at 17.4 per 100,000 residents in Cook 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 Cook 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 Morton Grove rather than Morton Grove 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 8 miles away.
| Airport | Code | Distance | Longest runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago O'Hare Intl | ORD | 8 mi | 11,245 ft |
| Gary/Chicago Intl | GYY | 35 mi | 8,859 ft |
| South Bend Intl | SBN | 79 mi | 8,412 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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Other cities in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN
Same metropolitan area, measured the same way| City | County | Population | Area Score | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago | Cook County | 2,711,226 | 54 | vs Morton Grove |
| Aurora | Kane County | 179,898 | 64 | vs Morton Grove |
| Naperville | DuPage County | 150,692 | 71 | vs Morton Grove |
| Joliet | Will County | 150,445 | 59 | vs Morton Grove |
| Elgin | Kane County | 114,934 | 57 | vs Morton Grove |
| Waukegan | Lake County | 89,076 | 58 | vs Morton Grove |
| Cicero | Cook County | 82,797 | 48 | vs Morton Grove |
| Schaumburg | Cook County | 76,868 | 61 | vs Morton Grove |
| Hammond | Lake County | 76,768 | 58 | vs Morton Grove |
| Evanston | Cook County | 76,340 | 63 | vs Morton Grove |
| Arlington Heights | Cook County | 76,005 | 66 | vs Morton Grove |
| Bolingbrook | Will County | 74,096 | 64 | vs Morton Grove |
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.
Similar places
Matched on AreaProfile signals, not geographyCompare
Put Morton Grove 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 |
| Jobs | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | 2025 OEWS | Annual (spring release) |
| 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.
ZIP codes in Morton Grove
1 published ZIP profiles| ZIP | Population | Median household income | Area Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60053 | 24,619 | $111,116 | 62 |