Worcester County, MD

County Profile

53,700 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Worcester County, MD.

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.

71out of 100
Area Score
Top 19% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 6% of 1,255 counties83
SchoolsTop 8% of 973 counties84
Growth636th of 1,226 counties49
Housing affordability924th of 1,255 counties82
ClimateTop 34% of 1,254 counties72
Physical resilienceTop 45% of 1,255 counties65
Access1179th of 1,255 counties43
Economic stability887th of 1,255 counties48
The quick read

Worcester County ranks in the top 6% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.7% and median household income of $81,745.

Residential permitting has slowed: 206 units authorized over the past twelve months, 35% below the prior year.

The nearest major airport is 94 miles away, which is farther than most measured US locations.

At a glance

Population
53,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$81,745
Top 16% nationally
Density
115/sq mi
468.3 sq mi of land
Median age
50.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Worcester County
Maryland
Metro area
Ocean Pines, MD
Nearest major airport
ACY
94 mi · Atlantic City Intl
Median home value
$374,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.7% is lower than 70% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Unemployment has been falling for 5 consecutive months, most recently 3.7%.

Employment grew 2.1% over the past year, to 29,646 employed residents.

35% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 86% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,130$81,745Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,004$53,274Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate9.9%Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.5 minBottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher35.3%Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment29,646Bottom 39%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)4.4%Top 11%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)2.1%Top 6%June 2026
Labor force30,773Bottom 39%June 2026
Labor force participation58.8%Top 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.1%Bottom 43%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.7%Bottom 30%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.92.1
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.7% 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
202120222023202482k71k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $81,745 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.

26% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 31% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 12.4 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
14
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
26.1%
Top 12% in Maryland
Reading proficiency
30.9%
Top 24% in Maryland
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Stephen Decatur HighWorcester County Public Schools1,46217.4
Stephen Decatur MiddleWorcester County Public Schools66512.826%40%
Showell ElementaryWorcester County Public Schools63811.624%32%
Berlin IntermediateWorcester County Public Schools61312.040%43%
Ocean City ElementaryWorcester County Public Schools56611.840%47%
Buckingham ElementaryWorcester County Public Schools51812.017%24%
Pocomoke ElementaryWorcester County Public Schools49113.317%17%
Pocomoke MiddleWorcester County Public Schools46510.321%17%
Snow Hill MiddleWorcester County Public Schools4049.619%22%
Snow Hill ElementaryWorcester County Public Schools38712.925%25%
Pocomoke HighWorcester County Public Schools37411.3
Snow Hill HighWorcester County Public Schools36811.5

48.8% 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 Maryland’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 $1,159 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.6 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
17.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,159
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$374,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.58Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate78.0%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±9656,867Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$85$1,159Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$9,482$374,700Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.0%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate57.6%Top 1%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
49/ 100
Ranks 636 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing — 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 3% since 2020, reaching 54,337 in 2024.

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

At 3.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
206
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
3.8
Top 40% nationally
Year over year
−35%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202454k53k
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
2022202320242025521241
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−29%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 84°F and January a low of 28°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 42.6 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station OCEAN CITY MUNI AP, 11.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation42.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low28°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high84°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing40°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

65 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane and coastal flooding.

HurricaneHigh
Coastal floodingHigh

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, cold wave, wildfire, drought, ice storm, heat wave, inland flooding, earthquake, lightning, strong wind, tornado, landslide, hail.

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.

Worcester County records 3.4 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 8.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 22.2 per 100,000 residents in Worcester County.

Homicide
3.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
22.2
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
12.3
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 Worcester 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 Worcester County rather than Worcester 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 94 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Atlantic City IntlACY94 mi10,001 ft
Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood MarshallBWI99 mi10,503 ft
Newport News/Williamsburg IntlPHF99 mi8,003 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
71
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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 Worcester County, MD