Albert Lea, Minnesota
Area Profile
18,330 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Albert Lea, in Freeborn County.
Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.9% and the Opportunity signal places Albert Lea in the bottom 7%.
In the public schools here, 33% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 14.6 students for every teacher.
Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 16% of median household income and the median home is 2.4 times it.
At a glance
Jobs & opportunity
Unemployment of 4.9% is lower than 28% of the 3,904 measured US cities.
Employment fell 2.5% over the past year, to 14,973 employed residents.
| Metric | Value | Compared with peers | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income ±$5,663 | $64,603 | Bottom 47% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Per capita income ±$4,891 | $39,282 | Top 34% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Poverty rate | 12.8% | Top 43% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Average commute | 19.3 min | Bottom 15% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Bachelor's degree or higher | 17.4% | Bottom 41% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Employment | 14,973 | Bottom 14% | June 2026 |
| Employment change (3 years) | -1.4% | Bottom 27% | June 2026 |
| Employment change (year over year) | -2.5% | Bottom 13% | June 2026 |
| Labor force | 15,750 | Bottom 15% | June 2026 |
| Labor force participation | 57.4% | Bottom 40% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Unemployment change (year over year) | 0.6% | Top 21% | June 2026 |
| Unemployment rate | 4.9% | Top 28% | June 2026 |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Freeborn County, MN, which contains this city.
Schools
How it’s calculated →33% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 38% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.
There are 14.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.
| School | District | Students | Per teacher | Math | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albert Lea Senior High | Albert Lea Public School District | 1,196 | 16.2 | 22% | 32% |
| Southwest Middle | Albert Lea Public School District | 486 | 14.7 | — | — |
| Hawthorne Elementary | Albert Lea Public School District | 400 | 13.8 | 28% | 34% |
| Lakeview Elementary | Albert Lea Public School District | 400 | 14.3 | 61% | 55% |
| Halverson Elementary | Albert Lea Public School District | 360 | 15.0 | 40% | 42% |
| Sibley Elementary | Albert Lea Public School District | 275 | 12.5 | 38% | 38% |
| Albert Lea Area Learning Center | Albert Lea Public School District | 113 | 28.3 | — | — |
| Brookside Early Childhood Sp Ed | Albert Lea Public School District | 68 | 5.7 | — | — |
57.8% 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 Minnesota’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 $857 takes 16% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.
A median home costs 2.4 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.
| Metric | Value | Compared with peers | Source period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home price to income | 2.44 | Bottom 36% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Homeownership rate | 74.1% | Bottom 46% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Housing units ±186 | 8,552 | Top 7% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median gross rent ±$71 | $857 | Bottom 36% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Median home value ±$8,407 | $157,500 | Bottom 40% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Rent as a share of income | 15.9% | Bottom 31% | 2024 ACS 5-Year |
| Vacancy rate | 8.9% | Bottom 46% | 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 →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 fallen 2% since 2020, reaching 18,159 in 2024.
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 cities.
Weather & climate
5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 82°F and January a low of 6°F.
Normal annual precipitation is 35.8 inches, including 39.5 inches of snow.
| Metric | Value | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| Annual precipitation | 35.8" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Annual snowfall | 39.5" | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average January low | 6°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Average July high | 82°F | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Comfortable months | 5 | 1991-2020 Normals |
| Seasonal temperature swing | 58°F | 1991-2020 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
The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are tornado, drought and cold wave.
Overall hazard risk is lower than 71% of measured US cities.
Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, inland flooding, landslide, ice storm, wildfire, earthquake.
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.
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 47 miles away.
| Airport | Code | Distance | Longest runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rochester Intl | RST | 47 mi | 9,034 ft |
| Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-Chamberlain | MSP | 85 mi | 11,006 ft |
| Waterloo Rgnl | ALO | 90 mi | 8,399 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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Data & methodology
| Used for | Source | Source period | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Federal Aviation Administration Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service | NASR current cycle | 28-day NASR cycle |
| Physical risk | Federal Emergency Management Agency National Risk Index | National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0) | Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current) |
| Climate | NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly) | 1991-2020 Normals | Every ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period) |
| Jobs | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics | June 2026 | Monthly |
| Demographics | U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program | July 1, 2024 estimate | Annual (vintage released each spring) |
| Development | U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey | 12 months ending July 2026 | Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month |
| Demographics, Housing, Income, Jobs | U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File) | 2024 ACS 5-Year | Annual (5-year estimates released each December) |
| safety | U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics Provisional county-level mortality by intent | April, 2025 to March, 2026 | Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years |
| schools | U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments | 2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school year | Directory 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.
ZIP codes in Albert Lea
1 published ZIP profiles| ZIP | Population | Median household income | Area Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 56007 | 21,377 | $68,846 | 53 |