50261 — West Des Moines, Iowa

Unemployment of 2.8% is lower than 98% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 0.3% over the past year, to 43,859 employed residents.

43% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 82% of measured US ZIP areas.

Household income is higher than at least 97% of measured US ZIP areas.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for West Des Moines, IA, the city containing this ZIP code.

85% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 87% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 18.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

8.1% 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.

Median rent of $1,069 takes 8% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.4 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

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.

At 4.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for West Des Moines, IA, the city containing this ZIP code.

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 86°F and January a low of 14°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 36.5 inches, including 36.5 inches of snow.

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.

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

Overall hazard risk is lower than 79% of measured US ZIP areas.

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.

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.

Crime

The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source 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. Reported crime is also easy to misread: agency participation varies year to year, and a city that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate.

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.

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 14 miles away.

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.

Put 50261 side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated August 29, 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.

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

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.