Woodbury County, IA

County Profile

106,247 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Woodbury 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.

64out of 100
Area Score
Top 44% of 1,225 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 22% of 1,255 counties measured69
Schools676th of 973 counties measured36
Growth1032nd of 1,226 counties measured31
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties measured100
Climate1104th of 1,254 counties measured56
Physical resilienceTop 35% of 1,255 counties measured71
AccessTop 22% of 1,255 counties measured92
Economic stabilityTop 33% of 1,255 counties measured72
The quick read

Woodbury County ranks in the top 22% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.3% and median household income of $73,658.

Residential permitting has slowed: 158 units authorized over the past twelve months, 23% below the prior year.

A major airport is 17 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
106,247
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$73,658
Top 29% nationally
Density
122/sq mi
872.9 sq mi of land
Median age
36.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Woodbury County
Iowa
Metro area
Sioux City, IA-NE-SD
Nearest major airport
SUX
17 mi · Sioux Gateway/Brig General Bud Day Fld
Median home value
$183,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.3% is lower than 86% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 0.3% over the past year, to 55,070 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$2,611$73,658Top 29%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,120$35,564Top 47%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.0%Top 46%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.2 minBottom 12%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher24.3%Top 41%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Employment55,070Top 42%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.5%Top 47%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.3%Top 37%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force56,921Top 42%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force participation67.2%Top 10%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 32%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate3.3%Bottom 14%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.02.5
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.3% 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
202120222023202474k63k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $73,658 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 — Sioux City, IA-NE-SD
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers2,820$51,540
Retail Salespersons2,220$30,150
Fast Food and Counter Workers2,060$29,090
Food Processing Workers, All Other1,710$46,350
Cashiers1,700$29,470
Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutters and Trimmers1,700$47,580

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.

62% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 62% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.8 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
36
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
62.3%
Bottom 30% in Iowa
Reading proficiency
62.1%
Bottom 33% in Iowa
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
North High SchoolSioux City Comm School District1,52920.4
East High SchoolSioux City Comm School District1,49518.7
West High SchoolSioux City Comm School District1,30816.6
North Middle SchoolSioux City Comm School District1,13615.856%54%
East Middle SchoolSioux City Comm School District1,07614.961%70%
West Middle SchoolSioux City Comm School District82612.961%60%
Spalding Park ElementarySioux City Comm School District68313.960%55%
Liberty Elementary SchoolSioux City Comm School District65913.242%40%
Morningside ElementarySioux City Comm School District64514.062%56%
Perry Creek Elementary SchoolSioux City Comm School District63516.374%76%
Bryant Elementary SchoolSioux City Comm School District60814.563%60%
Irving Elementary SchoolSioux City Comm School District60511.642%36%

60.2% 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 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 $981 takes 16% 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
16.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$981
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$183,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.49Bottom 28%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate68.2%Bottom 23%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±11343,388Top 20%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$26$981Top 33%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$4,800$183,200Top 50%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.0%Bottom 38%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.2%Bottom 11%of 3,2222024 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
31/ 100
Ranks 1032 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, 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 107,257 in 2024.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 8% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 1.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
158
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.5
Bottom 25% nationally
Year over year
−23%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
7.6%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024107k106k
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
2022202320242025238164
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was close to 2022 (+3%).

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 10°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 29.3 inches, including 36.0 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 43, 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 SIOUX CITY GATEWAY AP, 16.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index58.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation29.3"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall36.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low10°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index43.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing54°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
43
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
58
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

71 / 100
Physical resilience

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

TornadoModerate
HailModerate
DroughtModerate
WildfireModerate
Cold waveModerate
Winter weatherModerate
Strong windElevated
Heat waveElevated
Inland floodingModerate
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: ice storm, landslide, earthquake.

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.

Woodbury County records 2.7 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 8.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 13.2 per 100,000 residents in Woodbury County.

Homicide
2.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
13.2
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
15.1
per 100,000 residents

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 Woodbury 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 Woodbury County rather than Woodbury 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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 17 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Sioux Gateway/Brig General Bud Day FldSUX17 mi9,002 ft
Eppley AirfieldOMA76 mi9,502 ft
Joe Foss FldFSD89 mi9,000 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
64
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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 Woodbury County, IA