Greenfield, Massachusetts

Area Profile

17,664 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Greenfield, in Franklin County.

47out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 9% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3681st of 3,904 cities measured29
Schools2208th of 2,668 cities measured25
Growth2188th of 2,973 cities measured37
Housing affordability2983rd of 4,223 cities measured67
Climate3735th of 4,223 cities measured59
Physical resilienceTop 48% of 4,182 cities measured60
Access2956th of 4,226 cities measured85
Economic stability3163rd of 4,226 cities measured46
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.8% and the Opportunity signal places Greenfield in the bottom 6%.

In the public schools here, 10% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 11.2 students for every teacher.

11 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, essentially level with the prior year — steady rather than turning.

At a glance

Population
17,664
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$55,614
Bottom 32% nationally
Density
825/sq mi
21.4 sq mi of land
Median age
44.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Franklin County
Massachusetts
Metro area
Greenfield, MA
Nearest major airport
BAF
32 mi · Westfield-Barnes Rgnl
Median home value
$263,100
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.8% is lower than 32% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 4.2% over the past year, to 7,465 employed residents.

39% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 80% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$7,382$55,614Bottom 32%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,174$35,425Top 45%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate15.2%Top 35%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.0 minBottom 14%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher39.1%Top 20%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment7,465Bottom 1%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-4.7%Bottom 4%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-4.2%Bottom 3%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force7,842Bottom 1%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation58.5%Bottom 43%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 45%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate4.8%Top 32%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.03.2
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.8% 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
202120222023202456k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $55,614 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.

10% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 31% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 11.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
7
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
11.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
10.4%
Bottom 2% in Massachusetts
Reading proficiency
31.0%
Bottom 16% in Massachusetts
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Greenfield HighGreenfield40410.917%27%
Greenfield MiddleGreenfield32511.68%32%
Four Rivers Charter Public School · charterFour Rivers Charter Public2139.710%30%
Federal Street SchoolGreenfield19511.510%30%
Discovery School at Four CornersGreenfield18510.37%47%
Newton SchoolGreenfield17412.45%25%
The Academy of Early Learning at North ParishGreenfield8717.4

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 $1,107 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.7 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
23.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,107
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$263,100
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income4.73Top 18%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate55.7%Bottom 15%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2408,723Top 7%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$67$1,107Top 39%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$16,241$263,100Top 33%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.9%Top 21%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.2%Bottom 34%of 32,0012024 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
37/ 100
Ranks 2188 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, 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 17,633 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

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

At 0.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
11
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.6
Bottom 24% nationally
Year over year
0%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202418k18k
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
2022202320242025176.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+13%).

Weather & climate

5 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 14°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 42.2 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 36, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ORANGE MUNI AP, 15.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index56.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation42.2"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low14°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high84°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index36.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing48°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
36
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
56
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

60 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HurricaneElevated
Ice stormModerate
Inland floodingElevated
LightningModerate
DroughtModerate
Heat waveModerate
TornadoModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, cold wave, strong wind, earthquake, avalanche, winter weather, hail, wildfire.

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.

Franklin County records 1.6 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 8.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 15.2 per 100,000 residents in Franklin County.

Homicide
1.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
15.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
13.1
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 Franklin 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 Greenfield rather than Greenfield 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

6 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 32 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Westfield-Barnes RgnlBAF32 mi9,000 ft
Bradley IntlBDL47 mi9,510 ft
Albany IntlALB62 mi8,500 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
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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
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.

ZIP codes in Greenfield

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
0130117,876$56,17647