Marshalltown, Iowa

Area Profile

27,626 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Marshalltown, in Marshall County.

54out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 27% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity1994th of 3,904 published cities56
Schools2205th of 2,668 published cities26
Growth2418th of 2,973 published cities31
Housing affordabilityTop 8% of 4,223 published cities100
Climate3930th of 4,223 published cities56
Physical resilience2459th of 4,182 published cities49
Access3519th of 4,226 published cities75
Economic stability2566th of 4,226 published cities55
The quick read

Unemployment is 5.1% and median household income $69,068, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Residential permitting has slowed: 9 units authorized over the past twelve months, 63% 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 1.8 times it.

At a glance

Population
27,626
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$69,068
Top 47% nationally
Density
1,439/sq mi
19.2 sq mi of land
Median age
35.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Marshall County
Iowa
Metro area
Marshalltown, IA
Nearest major airport
ALO
44 mi · Waterloo Rgnl
Median home value
$127,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.1% is lower than 22% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 0.9% over the past year, to 12,812 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,067$69,068Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,491$30,130Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.3%Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute18.9 minBottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.9%Top 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment12,812Bottom 8%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.6%Top 11%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.9%Top 13%June 2026
Labor force13,506Bottom 8%June 2026
Labor force participation66.9%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.9%Bottom 7%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.1%Top 22%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/069.53.6
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.1% 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
202120222023202469k57k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $69,068 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.

54% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 49% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.0 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.0
across all schools here
Math proficiency
53.5%
Bottom 18% in Iowa
Reading proficiency
49.2%
Bottom 10% in Iowa
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Marshalltown High SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District1,62916.1
B R Miller Middle SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District73614.257%53%
Lenihan Intermediate SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District65512.641%41%
Woodbury Elementary SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District38715.550%49%
Fisher Elementary SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District36813.167%60%
Franklin Elementary SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District35811.555%49%
J C Hoglan Elementary SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District33713.561%54%
Anson Elementary SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District28611.454%45%
Rogers Elementary SchoolMarshalltown Comm School District25313.350%44%

75.5% 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 $891 takes 15% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 1.8 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
15.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
1.8×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$891
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$127,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income1.85Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate68.8%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±18511,046Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$58$891Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$8,208$127,700Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income15.5%Bottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.2%Bottom 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
31/ 100
Ranks 2418 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing — 3 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 27,886 in 2024.

Permit activity has fallen for 3 consecutive years.

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

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

At 0.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
9
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.3
Bottom 17% nationally
Year over year
−63%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202428k27k
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
20222023202420259015
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−83%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 83°F and January a low of 10°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 32.8 inches.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MARSHALLTOWN MUNI AP, 5.5 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation32.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low10°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high83°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing54°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

49 / 100
Physical resilience

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

DroughtElevated
Strong windModerate
Winter weatherModerate
TornadoHigh
Cold waveElevated
LightningModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: hail, inland flooding, wildfire, landslide, ice storm, earthquake, 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.

Marshall County records 1.7 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 12.1 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 7.8 per 100,000 residents in Marshall County.

Homicide
1.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
12.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
7.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
25.0
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 Marshall 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 Marshalltown rather than Marshalltown 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 44 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Waterloo RgnlALO44 mi8,399 ft
Des Moines IntlDSM52 mi9,004 ft
The Eastern IowaCID62 mi8,600 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
54
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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.

ZIP codes in Marshalltown

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
5015831,396$70,36755