Red Wing, Minnesota

Area Profile

16,758 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Red Wing, in Goodhue County.

55out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 31% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2745th of 3,904 published cities47
Schools1965th of 2,668 published cities33
Growth1933rd of 2,973 published cities42
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 4,223 published cities94
Climate4142nd of 4,223 published cities53
Physical resilienceTop 50% of 4,182 published cities59
Access3230th of 4,226 published cities81
Economic stability2798th of 4,226 published cities52
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.8% and the Opportunity signal places Red Wing in the bottom 30%.

In the public schools here, 38% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 13.4 students for every teacher.

Rent takes 17% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.5 times that income.

At a glance

Population
16,758
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$67,192
Top 50% nationally
Density
481/sq mi
34.8 sq mi of land
Median age
42.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Goodhue County
Minnesota
Metro area
Red Wing, MN
Nearest major airport
MSP
37 mi · Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-Chamberlain
Median home value
$237,300
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

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

Employment fell 1.3% over the past year, to 25,208 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$10,238$67,192Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,330$40,751Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate13.8%Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.4 minBottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher25.3%Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment25,208Bottom 32%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.1%Top 33%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.3%Bottom 39%June 2026
Labor force26,488Bottom 33%June 2026
Labor force participation60.2%Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.8%Top 14%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.8%Top 32%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202467k61k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $67,192 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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Goodhue County, MN, which contains this city.

38% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 41% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 13.4 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
12
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
37.7%
Bottom 24% in Minnesota
Reading proficiency
41.5%
Bottom 20% in Minnesota
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Red Wing Senior HighRed Wing Public School District76216.927%37%
Twin Bluff SchoolRed Wing Public School District50216.245%42%
Burnside ElementaryRed Wing Public School District49314.149%46%
Sunnyside ElementaryRed Wing Public School District29412.333%45%
Creekstone Montessori · charterCreekstone Montessori Charter12217.4
Colvill Family Education CenterRed Wing Public School District798.8
Reach ProgramsGoodhue County Education District683.6
MCF-Red Wing Maginnis High SchoolMINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS53
Pathways Program Grades 8-12Goodhue County Education District316.2
EC & HK SummerGoodhue County Education District0
Red Wing HS Credit RecoveryGoodhue County Education District0
GCED Credit RecoveryGoodhue County Education District0

35.9% 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 $969 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.5 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
17.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$969
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$237,300
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.53Top 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate72.2%Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2367,722Top 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$54$969Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,422$237,300Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.3%Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate4.4%Bottom 26%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
42/ 100
Ranks 1933 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, 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 1% since 2020, reaching 16,788 in 2024.

Permitting has turned upward 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 0.7 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
12
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.7
Bottom 25% nationally
Year over year
+33%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202417k17k
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
2022202320242025979.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−88%).

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 32.4 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 38, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

-10°10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station RED WING DAM 3, 2.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.1"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index48.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation32.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low6°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index38.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing58°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
38
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
48
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

59 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Overall hazard risk is lower than 76% of measured US cities.

Strong windHigh
HailElevated
TornadoElevated
Inland floodingModerate
Heat waveModerate
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, drought, winter weather, cold wave, 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.

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.

Goodhue County records 0.0 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 7.8 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 9.2 per 100,000 residents in Goodhue County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
7.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
9.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
14.0
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 Goodhue 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 Red Wing rather than Red Wing 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

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 37 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-ChamberlainMSP37 mi11,006 ft
Rochester IntlRST47 mi9,034 ft
Chippewa Valley RgnlEAU58 mi8,101 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
55
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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 Red Wing

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
5506619,226$73,58456
550891,612$108,75061