46970Peru, Indiana

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 46970.

64out of 100
Area Score
Top 35% of 5,298 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 32% of 6,210 ZIP areas measured64
GrowthTop 13% of 5,428 ZIP areas measured72
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 ZIP areas measured100
Climate5432nd of 6,789 ZIP areas measured62
Physical resilience4538th of 6,709 ZIP areas measured42
Access6332nd of 6,791 ZIP areas measured61
Economic stability5778th of 6,742 ZIP areas measured36
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.8% and median household income $57,842, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published ZIP profiles.

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 56 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 1300% on 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
23,020
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$57,842
Bottom 26% nationally
Density
128/sq mi
179.9 sq mi of land
Median age
41.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Peru
Indiana
Metro area
Peru, IN
Nearest major airport
SBN
67 mi · South Bend Intl
Median home value
$118,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.8% is lower than 74% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 1.1% over the past year, to 15,707 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$5,516$57,842Bottom 26%of 31,2952024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,152$30,917Bottom 30%of 32,8222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.6%Top 27%of 32,9702024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.6 minBottom 33%of 32,8872024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher16.7%Bottom 30%of 33,1932024 ACS 5-Year
Employment15,707Bottom 12%of 6,544June 2026
Employment change (3 years)4.4%Top 7%of 6,542June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.1%Top 11%of 6,544June 2026
Labor force16,329Bottom 12%of 6,544June 2026
Labor force participation57.4%Bottom 38%of 33,2522024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.9%Bottom 8%of 6,544June 2026
Unemployment rate3.8%Bottom 26%of 6,544June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202458k51k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $57,842 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 Peru, IN, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 17.1 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
4
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
17.1
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Peru Jr/Sr High SchoolPeru Community Schools81416.0
Blair Pointe Upper ElementaryPeru Community Schools57419.136%38%
Elmwood Primary Learning CenterPeru Community Schools44215.2
Pipe Creek Elementary SchoolMaconaquah School Corp36320.2

52.2% 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 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 $853 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
17.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$853
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$118,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.05Bottom 17%of 30,4042024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate71.5%Bottom 32%of 32,9102024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±31310,251Top 16%of 33,7722024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$27$853Bottom 31%of 26,6182024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$5,470$118,700Bottom 17%of 30,9412024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.7%Top 50%of 26,4702024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate12.0%Top 47%of 33,0282024 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
72/ 100
Top 13% 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.

64% 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 5.1 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
56
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
5.1
Top 29% nationally
Year over year
+1300%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
64.3%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Peru, IN, 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 85°F and January a low of 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 40.3 inches, including 19.5 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 WABASH, 12.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation40.3"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall19.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low18°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing48°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

42 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Overall hazard risk is lower than 70% of measured US ZIP areas.

HailModerate
DroughtModerate
Cold waveModerate
Inland floodingElevated
TornadoModerate
EarthquakeModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: strong wind, winter weather, landslide, lightning, hurricane, ice storm, 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.

Miami County records 3.2 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 11.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 12.7 per 100,000 residents in Miami County.

Homicide
3.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
11.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
12.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.6
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 Miami 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 46970 rather than 46970 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
Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.
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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 67 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
South Bend IntlSBN67 mi8,412 ft
Indianapolis IntlIND73 mi11,200 ft
Gary/Chicago IntlGYY92 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
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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
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.

46970 vs Peru

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

46970
Peru
Median household income
$57,842
vs
$46,159
Per capita income
$30,917
vs
$24,614
Population density
128/sq mi
vs
2,156/sq mi
Median home value
$118,700
vs
$92,500
Median gross rent
$853
vs
$826
Homeownership rate
71.5%
vs
71.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher
16.7%
vs
16.4%
Poverty rate
16.6%
vs
23.6%
Median age
41.7
vs
41.2

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.