La Porte, Indiana

Area Profile

22,449 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for La Porte, in LaPorte County.

70out of 100
Area Score
Top 19% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 37% of 3,904 published cities62
SchoolsTop 43% of 2,668 published cities56
GrowthTop 50% of 2,973 published cities51
Housing affordabilityTop 14% of 4,223 published cities97
Climate3314th of 4,223 published cities62
Physical resilienceTop 10% of 4,182 published cities91
Access2269th of 4,226 published cities91
Economic stability3267th of 4,226 published cities44
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.8% and median household income $59,307, 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 19% of median household income and the median home is 2.7 times it.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published city profiles, placing La Porte in the top 10% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
22,449
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$59,307
Bottom 38% nationally
Density
1,774/sq mi
12.7 sq mi of land
Median age
34.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
LaPorte County
Indiana
Metro area
Michigan City-La Porte, IN
Nearest major airport
SBN
22 mi · South Bend Intl
Median home value
$157,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.8% is lower than 70% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 0.4% over the past year, to 51,425 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,906$59,307Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,615$30,823Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.4%Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.7 minBottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.1%Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment51,425Top 49%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.4%Top 29%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.4%Top 22%June 2026
Labor force53,436Top 49%June 2026
Labor force participation62.9%Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$54,410Bottom 4%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$45,540Bottom 7%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 35%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.8%Bottom 30%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202460k45k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $59,307 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 — Michigan City-La Porte, IN
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,520$28,250
Retail Salespersons1,460$29,840
Cashiers1,040$28,520
Home Health and Personal Care Aides930$35,170
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand870$37,820
Miscellaneous Assemblers and Fabricators850$41,060

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 LaPorte County, IN, which contains this city.

41% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 42% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.5 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
11
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.5
across all schools here
Math proficiency
40.8%
Top 44% in Indiana
Reading proficiency
42.4%
Top 40% in Indiana
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
LaPorte High SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp1,80716.6
LaPorte Middle SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp86214.625%41%
Kesling Intermediate SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp84713.434%36%
F Willard Crichfield ElementaryLa Porte Community School Corp45917.772%57%
Handley Elementary SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp36615.939%39%
Lincoln Elementary SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp35315.335%45%
Hailmann Elementary SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp31816.742%42%
Kingsbury Elementary SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp29417.353%47%
Riley Elementary SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp29118.240%49%
Indian Trail Elementary SchoolLa Porte Community School Corp24612.355%30%
Renaissance Academy Charter School · charterRenaissance Academy Charter School24414.443%42%

42.4% 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 Indiana’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 $948 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.7 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
19.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$948
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$157,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.66Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate60.4%Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±44610,147Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$55$948Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,332$157,500Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.2%Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate11.8%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
51/ 100
Top 50% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, 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 22,444 in 2024.

89% 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 4.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
94
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
4.2
Top 35% nationally
Year over year
−2%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
89.4%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202422k22k
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
2020202120222023202420252077.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+1113%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 85°F and January a low of 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 33.4 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 41, in the Good band, and about 2 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 VALPARAISO PORTER CO MUNI AP, 18.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index64.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation33.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low18°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10022024 calendar year
Median air quality index41.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing48°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
41
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
64
90th percentile index
Days above 100
2
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

91 / 100
Physical resilience

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

TornadoModerate
HailModerate
Strong windModerate
EarthquakeModerate
Heat waveModerate

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

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.

LaPorte County records 9.8 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 26.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 22.4 per 100,000 residents in LaPorte County.

Homicide
9.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
26.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
22.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
27.8
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 LaPorte 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 La Porte rather than La Porte 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 22 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
South Bend IntlSBN22 mi8,412 ft
Gary/Chicago IntlGYY36 mi8,859 ft
Chicago O'Hare IntlORD67 mi11,245 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 Michigan City-La Porte, IN

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
Michigan CityLaPorte County31,81462vs La Porte

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.

Compare

Put La Porte side by side with a similar place.

La Porte vs SidneyLa Porte vs XeniaLa Porte vs RiversideLa Porte vs Wooster

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
2019-20 school year; 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 La Porte

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
4635044,763$74,30772