61764Pontiac, Illinois

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 61764.

55out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 33% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 24% of 6,210 published ZIP areas68
Schools3217th of 4,422 published ZIP areas34
Growth4988th of 5,428 published ZIP areas21
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 published ZIP areas100
Climate5507th of 6,789 published ZIP areas61
Physical resilience4654th of 6,709 published ZIP areas39
Access4838th of 6,791 published ZIP areas85
Economic stability5617th of 6,742 published ZIP areas38
The quick read

61764 ranks in the top 24% of published ZIP profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.7% and median household income of $68,781.

Residential permitting has slowed: 1 units authorized over the past twelve months, 75% below the prior year.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 15% of median household income and the median home is 1.9 times it.

At a glance

Population
13,668
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$68,781
Bottom 45% nationally
Density
88/sq mi
154.5 sq mi of land
Median age
42.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Pontiac
Illinois
Metro area
Pontiac, IL
Nearest major airport
BMI
32 mi · Central Il Rgnl/Bloomington-Normal
Median home value
$127,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.7% is lower than 78% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 0.7% over the past year, to 16,408 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,888$68,781Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,757$33,274Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.0%Top 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute18.4 minBottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher17.5%Bottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment16,408Bottom 13%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.6%Top 11%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.7%Top 16%June 2026
Labor force17,037Bottom 13%June 2026
Labor force participation53.9%Bottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.7%Bottom 22%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202469k55k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $68,781 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 Pontiac, IL, the city containing this ZIP code.

11% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 16% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 12.3 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
10.7%
Bottom 18% in Illinois
Reading proficiency
16.5%
Bottom 22% in Illinois
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Pontiac High SchoolPontiac Twp HSD 9065813.2
Central Elem SchoolPontiac CCSD 42936113.4
Pontiac Jr High SchoolPontiac CCSD 42932611.612%12%
Lincoln Elementary SchoolPontiac CCSD 42922711.312%17%
Washington Elem SchoolPontiac CCSD 42922110.57%23%
Livingston Area Career CntrDeWitt/Livingstn/Logan/McLean ROE0

52.3% 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 $857 takes 15% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 1.9 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
15.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
1.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$857
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$127,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income1.85Bottom 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate67.8%Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2425,945Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$49$857Bottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$15,200$127,400Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income15.0%Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate9.6%Bottom 44%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
21/ 100
Ranks 4988 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
1
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.1
Bottom 6% nationally
Year over year
−75%
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 Pontiac, IL, the city containing this ZIP code.

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 17°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 37.0 inches, including 25.1 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 PONTIAC, 0.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation37.0"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall25.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low17°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high84°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing50°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

39 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Inland floodingHigh
Strong windElevated
EarthquakeModerate
TornadoModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, drought, lightning, winter weather, hail, ice storm, 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. 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.

Livingston County records 3.1 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 11.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 10.3 per 100,000 residents in Livingston County.

Homicide
3.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
11.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
10.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
14.9
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 Livingston 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 61764 rather than 61764 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

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 32 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Central Il Rgnl/Bloomington-NormalBMI32 mi8,000 ft
General Downing - Peoria IntlPIA58 mi10,104 ft
Gary/Chicago IntlGYY81 mi8,859 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
55
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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.

61764 vs Pontiac

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

61764
Pontiac
Median household income
$68,781
vs
$61,279
Per capita income
$33,274
vs
$31,088
Population density
88/sq mi
vs
1,337/sq mi
Median home value
$127,400
vs
$116,300
Median gross rent
$857
vs
$842
Homeownership rate
67.8%
vs
63.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher
17.5%
vs
16.2%
Poverty rate
14.0%
vs
13.1%
Median age
42.2
vs
42.8

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.