Norfolk County, MA

County Profile

730,082 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Norfolk County, MA.

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.

77out of 100
Area Score
Top 5% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 23% of 1,255 counties69
SchoolsTop 1% of 973 counties98
GrowthTop 33% of 1,226 counties59
Housing affordability1039th of 1,255 counties72
Climate791st of 1,254 counties63
Physical resilienceTop 5% of 1,255 counties93
AccessTop 14% of 1,255 counties95
Economic stabilityTop 3% of 1,255 counties96
The quick read

Norfolk County ranks in the top 23% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.9% and median household income of $130,739.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 5.2 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 20% of it.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published profiles, placing Norfolk County in the top 5% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
730,082
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$130,739
Top 1% nationally
Density
1,843/sq mi
396.1 sq mi of land
Median age
40.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Norfolk County
Massachusetts
Metro area
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH
Nearest major airport
BOS
16 mi · General Edward Lawrence Logan Intl
Median home value
$683,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 62% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 1.5% over the past year, to 401,640 employed residents.

59% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 99% of measured US locations.

Household income is higher than at least 99% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$2,551$130,739Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$887$71,758Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate6.7%Bottom 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute35.5 minTop 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher58.8%Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment401,640Top 6%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.4%Top 37%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.5%Bottom 31%June 2026
Labor force417,830Top 6%June 2026
Labor force participation69.2%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.3%Bottom 27%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.32.8
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.9% 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
2021202220232024131k112k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $130,739 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 — Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides72,420$40,910
General and Operations Managers70,950$133,800
Registered Nurses64,240$106,180
Retail Salespersons64,150$36,850
Fast Food and Counter Workers60,130$36,290
Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners43,160$46,550

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.

46% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 58% 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
185
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
45.8%
Top 1% in Massachusetts
Reading proficiency
58.5%
Top 1% in Massachusetts
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Brookline HighBrookline2,18111.9
Braintree HighBraintree1,69415.7
Weymouth High SchoolWeymouth1,67912.023%31%
Needham HighNeedham1,63311.9
North Quincy HighQuincy1,52015.7
Quincy HighQuincy1,51412.8
Foxborough Regional Charter School · charterFoxborough Regional Charter1,45912.723%45%
Franklin HighFranklin1,45314.8
Wellesley Sr HighWellesley1,26210.8
Maria Weston Chapman Middle SchoolWeymouth1,18711.2
Sharon HighSharon1,16112.0
Stoughton HighStoughton1,11810.9

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 Massachusetts’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 $2,149 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.2 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
19.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,149
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$683,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.23Top 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate68.7%Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±233295,227Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$29$2,149Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$5,690$683,900Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.7%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate4.0%Bottom 2%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
59/ 100
Top 33% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, measured from 2020 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 2% since 2020, reaching 740,754 in 2024.

71% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 2.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
1,683
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.3
Bottom 41% nationally
Year over year
+77%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
71.4%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024741k724k
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
2020202120222023202420253k892
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−48%).

Weather & climate

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 21°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 43.9 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 39, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station NORWOOD MEM AP, 1.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index54.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation43.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low21°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high86°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index39.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing44°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
39
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
54
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

93 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HurricaneElevated
EarthquakeModerate
Coastal floodingElevated
LandslideModerate
DroughtModerate

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

Norfolk County records 1.1 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 1.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 11.1 per 100,000 residents in Norfolk County.

Homicide
1.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
1.4
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
11.1
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
7.0
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 Norfolk 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 Norfolk County rather than Norfolk 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

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 16 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
General Edward Lawrence Logan IntlBOS16 mi10,083 ft
Rhode Island TF Green IntlPVD34 mi8,700 ft
Manchester Boston RgnlMHT54 mi9,250 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.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
77
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

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.