Bremer County, IA

County Profile

25,204 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Bremer County, IA.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

67out of 100
Area Score
Top 31% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity672nd of 1,255 counties54
SchoolsTop 6% of 973 counties85
Growth726th of 1,226 counties45
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties100
Climate1097th of 1,254 counties56
Physical resilience685th of 1,255 counties58
AccessTop 18% of 1,255 counties94
Economic stabilityTop 13% of 1,255 counties87
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.8% and median household income $86,784, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

Rent takes 13% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 2.5 times that income.

A major airport is 16 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
25,204
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$86,784
Top 12% nationally
Density
58/sq mi
435.5 sq mi of land
Median age
39.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Bremer County
Iowa
Metro area
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA
Nearest major airport
ALO
16 mi · Waterloo Rgnl
Median home value
$219,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.8% is lower than 67% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 2.9% over the past year, to 12,396 employed residents.

36% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 87% of measured US locations.

Household income is higher than at least 88% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$2,629$86,784Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,348$43,033Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate7.3%Bottom 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.6 minBottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher36.2%Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment12,396Bottom 8%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-3.7%Bottom 11%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.9%Bottom 10%June 2026
Labor force12,889Bottom 8%June 2026
Labor force participation66.1%Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.6%Top 23%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.8%Bottom 33%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/063.82.2
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.8% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202487k77k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $86,784 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 — Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand2,920$47,440
Fast Food and Counter Workers2,500$27,820
Retail Salespersons2,460$31,270
Cashiers2,340$29,320
Registered Nurses1,890$76,920
Miscellaneous Assemblers and Fabricators1,610$50,310

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.

79% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 75% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.7 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
16
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
78.9%
Top 7% in Iowa
Reading proficiency
75.5%
Top 7% in Iowa
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Waverly-Shell Rock Senior High SchoolWaverly-Shell Rock Comm School District73715.0
Waverly-Shell Rock Middle SchoolWaverly-Shell Rock Comm School District68113.981%75%
Denver Elementary School - Lincoln Street BuildingDenver Comm School District43115.489%82%
Denver Senior High SchoolDenver Comm School District27813.9
Wapsie Valley High SchoolWapsie Valley Comm School District27312.485%75%
Janesville Elementary SchoolJanesville Consolidated School District26913.467%68%
Janesville Junior-Senior High SchoolJanesville Consolidated School District24320.385%95%
Sumner-Fredericksburg High SchoolSumner-Fredericksburg Comm School District24314.3
Denver Middle SchoolDenver Comm School District23821.698%98%
Tripoli Elementary SchoolTripoli Comm School District21916.865%58%
Durant Elementary SchoolSumner-Fredericksburg Comm School District20913.965%59%
Tripoli Middle/Sr High SchoolTripoli Comm School District17010.650%70%

20.7% 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 Iowa’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 $921 takes 13% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.5 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
12.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$921
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$219,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.53Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate79.7%Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4810,585Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$78$921Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$8,757$219,600Top 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income12.7%Bottom 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.2%Bottom 20%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
45/ 100
Ranks 726 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, measured from 2022 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 grown 1% since 2020, reaching 25,328 in 2024.

Permitting has turned upward after moving the other way the year before.

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

At 1.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
46
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.8
Bottom 32% nationally
Year over year
+39%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202425k25k
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
20222023202420254434
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+19%).

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 11°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 36.3 inches, including 39.1 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 40, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

0°20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station WATERLOO MUNI AP, 16.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index54.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation36.3"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall39.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low11°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index40.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing55°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
40
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
54
90th percentile index
Days above 100
0
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

58 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Overall hazard risk is lower than 75% of measured US locations.

DroughtElevated
HailModerate
Strong windModerate
Cold waveHigh
Inland floodingModerate
Heat waveModerate
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, tornado, ice storm, landslide, wildfire, earthquake, hurricane.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Bremer County records 0.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 10.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 0.0 per 100,000 residents in Bremer County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
10.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
16.3
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 Bremer 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 Bremer County rather than Bremer County 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 16 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Waterloo RgnlALO16 mi8,399 ft
The Eastern IowaCID69 mi8,600 ft
Rochester IntlRST78 mi9,034 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
67
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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
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.

Cities in Bremer County, IA