Lincoln Parish, LA

County Profile

48,174 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Lincoln Parish, LA.

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.

59out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 41% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity899th of 1,255 counties44
SchoolsTop 43% of 973 counties56
GrowthTop 26% of 1,226 counties63
Housing affordability1180th of 1,255 counties59
ClimateTop 18% of 1,254 counties76
Physical resilienceTop 28% of 1,255 counties76
Access1077th of 1,255 counties57
Economic stability1186th of 1,255 counties24
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published profiles: unemployment is 5.4% and the Opportunity signal places Lincoln Parish in the bottom 28%.

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 214 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 20% on the prior year.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 5.4 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 25% of it.

At a glance

Population
48,174
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$39,172
Bottom 4% nationally
Density
102/sq mi
471.6 sq mi of land
Median age
28.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Lincoln Parish
Louisiana
Metro area
Ruston, LA
Nearest major airport
SHV
69 mi · Shreveport Rgnl
Median home value
$210,100
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.4% is lower than 13% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 1.1% over the past year, to 21,133 employed residents.

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

Median household income of $39,172 is below 96% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,326$39,172Bottom 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,327$25,888Bottom 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate31.2%Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.6 minBottom 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher36.2%Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment21,133Bottom 26%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.2%Top 39%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.1%Top 14%June 2026
Labor force22,329Bottom 26%June 2026
Labor force participation51.1%Bottom 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.4%Top 13%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.82.8
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.4% 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
202120222023202439k37k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $39,172 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.

34% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 40% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 12.8 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
14
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
33.8%
Top 46% in Louisiana
Reading proficiency
40.5%
Bottom 42% in Louisiana
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Ruston High SchoolLincoln Parish1,21212.6
Lincoln Preparatory School · charterLincoln Preparatory School68410.25%12%
Ruston Junior High SchoolLincoln Parish58513.627%37%
Choudrant Elementary SchoolLincoln Parish53616.837%52%
Simsboro High SchoolLincoln Parish53212.745%47%
Glen View Elementary SchoolLincoln Parish43811.2
Choudrant High SchoolLincoln Parish42114.575%75%
A. E. Phillips Laboratory SchoolLincoln Parish41215.3
Cypress Springs Elementary SchoolLincoln Parish36911.935%40%
Ruston Elementary SchoolLincoln Parish35911.232%34%
Hillcrest Elementary SchoolLincoln Parish32613.6
I.A. Lewis SchoolLincoln Parish27712.6

57.1% 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 Louisiana’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 $825 takes 25% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.4 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
25.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$825
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$210,100
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.36Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate53.8%Bottom 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±7720,827Top 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$52$825Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$13,148$210,100Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income25.3%Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate11.2%Bottom 36%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
63/ 100
Top 26% 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 been broadly flat since 2020, at 48,243 in 2024.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 5% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 4.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
214
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
4.4
Top 34% nationally
Year over year
+20%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
4.7%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202448k48k
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
202220232024202518371
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+126%).

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 92°F and January a low of 35°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 55.6 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station RUSTON LA TECH, 6.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation55.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low35°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high92°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing36°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

76 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are strong wind, ice storm and earthquake.

Ice stormHigh
Strong windModerate
EarthquakeModerate
HurricaneModerate
LightningModerate
LandslideModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, tornado, hail, inland flooding, drought, wildfire, winter weather, cold wave.

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.

Lincoln Parish records 8.5 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 17.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 11.4 per 100,000 residents in Lincoln Parish.

Homicide
8.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
11.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
12.6
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 Lincoln Parish 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 Lincoln Parish rather than Lincoln Parish 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

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 69 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Shreveport RgnlSHV69 mi8,348 ft
Alexandria IntlAEX88 mi9,352 ft
Greenville Mid-DeltaGLH115 mi8,001 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
59
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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.

Cities in Lincoln Parish, LA