01247North Adams, Massachusetts

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 01247.

48out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 11% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity5720th of 6,210 published ZIP areas29
Schools3223rd of 4,422 published ZIP areas34
Growth3467th of 5,428 published ZIP areas41
Housing affordabilityTop 35% of 6,685 published ZIP areas89
Climate5993rd of 6,789 published ZIP areas59
Physical resilience4437th of 6,709 published ZIP areas44
Access5143rd of 6,791 published ZIP areas82
Economic stability6052nd of 6,742 published ZIP areas32
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 5.1% and the Opportunity signal places 01247 in the bottom 8%.

In the public schools here, 15% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 10.3 students for every teacher.

Rent takes 18% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.9 times that income.

At a glance

Population
14,794
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$52,330
Bottom 18% nationally
Density
322/sq mi
45.9 sq mi of land
Median age
44.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
North Adams
Massachusetts
Metro area
Pittsfield, MA
Nearest major airport
ALB
36 mi · Albany Intl
Median home value
$205,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.1% is lower than 25% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 1.9% over the past year, to 5,301 employed residents.

Median household income of $52,330 is below 82% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,835$52,330Bottom 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,732$37,561Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.3%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.4 minBottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher28.3%Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment5,301Bottom 1%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.0%Bottom 32%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.9%Bottom 20%June 2026
Labor force5,586Bottom 1%June 2026
Labor force participation55.1%Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$69,090Top 44%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$51,860Top 39%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 47%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.1%Top 25%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202456k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $52,330 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 — Pittsfield, MA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides2,540$40,160
Retail Salespersons1,850$35,540
General and Operations Managers1,500$98,210
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,470$34,680
Registered Nurses1,230$104,950
Cashiers1,160$34,380

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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for North Adams, MA, the city containing this ZIP code.

15% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 28% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 10.3 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
10.3
across all schools here
Math proficiency
14.6%
Bottom 18% in Massachusetts
Reading proficiency
28.5%
Bottom 18% in Massachusetts
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Charles McCann Vocational TechnicalNorthern Berkshire Regional Vocational Technical51410.7
Drury HighNorth Adams43810.017%17%
Colegrove Park ElementaryNorth Adams36912.38%38%
BraytonNorth Adams3429.816%23%
Clarksburg ElementaryClarksburg20412.818%45%
Abbott MemorialFlorida835.2

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 $802 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.9 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
18.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$802
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$205,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.92Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate55.9%Bottom 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4498,041Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$111$802Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$13,731$205,200Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.4%Top 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate14.3%Top 40%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
41/ 100
Ranks 3467 of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

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

At 0.3 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
4
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.3
Bottom 12% nationally
Year over year
+300%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for North Adams, MA, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 81°F and January a low of 14°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 42.3 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 38, 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 NORTH ADAMS HARRIMAN AP, 3.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index56.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation42.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low14°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high81°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index38.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing46°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
38
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

44 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Inland floodingHigh
HurricaneElevated
LandslideModerate
TornadoModerate

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

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.

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.

Berkshire County records 2.4 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 8.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 31.5 per 100,000 residents in Berkshire County.

Homicide
2.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
31.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.6
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 Berkshire 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 01247 rather than 01247 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 36 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Albany IntlALB36 mi8,500 ft
Westfield-Barnes RgnlBAF42 mi9,000 ft
Bradley IntlBDL56 mi9,510 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
48
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
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
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.

01247 vs North Adams

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

01247
North Adams
Median household income
$52,330
vs
$47,500
Per capita income
$37,561
vs
$36,808
Population density
322/sq mi
vs
620/sq mi
Median home value
$205,200
vs
$195,900
Median gross rent
$802
vs
$793
Homeownership rate
55.9%
vs
51.0%
Bachelor's degree or higher
28.3%
vs
28.4%
Poverty rate
16.3%
vs
18.6%
Median age
44.7
vs
44.1

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.