62864Mount Vernon, Illinois

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 62864.

48out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 10% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity6001st of 6,210 published ZIP areas22
Schools3093rd of 4,422 published ZIP areas36
Growth5382nd of 5,428 published ZIP areas7
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 published ZIP areas100
Climate3903rd of 6,789 published ZIP areas68
Physical resilience3459th of 6,709 published ZIP areas57
Access5421st of 6,791 published ZIP areas79
Economic stability5082nd of 6,742 published ZIP areas44
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 5.2% and the Opportunity signal places 62864 in the bottom 3%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 2 units authorized over the past twelve months, 83% below the prior year.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 18% of median household income and the median home is 2.1 times it.

At a glance

Population
22,779
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$60,451
Bottom 30% nationally
Density
159/sq mi
143.0 sq mi of land
Median age
41.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Mount Vernon
Illinois
Metro area
Mount Vernon, IL
Nearest major airport
MWA
40 mi · Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois
Median home value
$124,800
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.2% is lower than 22% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 2.4% over the past year, to 14,826 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,592$60,451Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,978$34,622Bottom 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate13.9%Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute18.4 minBottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.1%Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment14,826Bottom 10%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-4.4%Bottom 5%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.4%Bottom 13%June 2026
Labor force15,647Bottom 10%June 2026
Labor force participation61.8%Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.7%Top 21%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.2%Top 22%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202460k51k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $60,451 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 does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Mount Vernon, IL, the city containing this ZIP code.

13% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 16% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 13.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
15
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
13.1%
Bottom 29% in Illinois
Reading proficiency
15.9%
Bottom 21% in Illinois
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Mount Vernon High SchoolMt Vernon Twp HSD 2011,23314.3
Dr Nick Osborne Primary CenterMount Vernon SD 8056213.78%12%
Zadok Casey Middle SchoolMount Vernon SD 8038011.912%12%
Summersville Grade SchoolSummersville SD 7928312.327%31%
J L Buford Intermediate Ed CtrMount Vernon SD 8026014.45%10%
Dr Andy Hall Early Educ CtrMount Vernon SD 8024317.4
Bethel Grade SchoolBethel SD 8215411.810%10%
Spring Garden Elementary SchoolSpring Garden CCSD 17812412.430%30%
McClellan Elementary SchoolMcClellan CCSD 12569.3
Safe School ProgramClintn/Jeffrsn/Marin/Washngtn ROE0
Mt Vernon Alternative SchoolClintn/Jeffrsn/Marin/Washngtn ROE0
Clnton/Mrn/Wshngtn Pre-Kind ProgClintn/Jeffrsn/Marin/Washngtn ROE0

69.2% 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 $901 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.1 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
17.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$901
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$124,800
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.06Bottom 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate66.2%Bottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±19511,122Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$44$901Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$7,591$124,800Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.9%Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate13.0%Top 43%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
7/ 100
Ranks 5382 of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

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

At 0.1 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
2
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.1
Bottom 8% nationally
Year over year
−83%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Mount Vernon, IL, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

6 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 22°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 45.0 inches, including 10.4 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 MT VERNON 3 NE, 2.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.1"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation45.0"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall10.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low22°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high86°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing46°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

57 / 100
Physical resilience

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

EarthquakeModerate
Strong windElevated
Winter weatherModerate
TornadoModerate
HailModerate
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, landslide, inland flooding, drought, lightning, ice storm, hurricane, wildfire.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. ZIP values are the land-area-weighted mean of the counties the ZIP Code Tabulation Area intersects. Expected annual loss is not allocated below county level. 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.

Jefferson County records 6.8 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 17.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 14.7 per 100,000 residents in Jefferson County.

Homicide
6.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
14.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.9
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 Jefferson 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 62864 rather than 62864 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 40 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Veterans Airport of Southern IllinoisMWA40 mi8,012 ft
St Louis RgnlALN73 mi8,099 ft
Evansville RgnlEVV77 mi8,021 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
48
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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)
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.

62864 vs Mount Vernon

How this ZIP area compares with Mount Vernon as a whole. Both figures come from the same ACS release, so the comparison is like for like.

62864
Mount Vernon
Median household income
$60,451
vs
$55,357
Per capita income
$34,622
vs
$31,841
Population density
159/sq mi
vs
961/sq mi
Median home value
$124,800
vs
$99,800
Median gross rent
$901
vs
$910
Homeownership rate
66.2%
vs
53.1%
Bachelor's degree or higher
20.1%
vs
18.5%
Poverty rate
13.9%
vs
17.3%
Median age
41.2
vs
38.9

Some demographic statistics use Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, which approximate but do not exactly match USPS ZIP delivery geography. See the methodology for how AreaProfile maps between them.