64504St. Joseph, Missouri

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 64504.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 48% of 6,210 published ZIP areas56
Schools3288th of 4,422 published ZIP areas32
Housing affordabilityTop 18% of 6,685 published ZIP areas96
Climate4409th of 6,789 published ZIP areas65
Physical resilienceTop 12% of 6,709 published ZIP areas89
AccessTop 32% of 6,791 published ZIP areas97
Economic stability5900th of 6,742 published ZIP areas34
The quick read

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 20% of median household income and the median home is 2.2 times it.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published ZIP profiles, placing 64504 in the top 12% for physical resilience.

A major airport is 6 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
10,068
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$58,801
Bottom 28% nationally
Density
214/sq mi
47.0 sq mi of land
Median age
38.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
St. Joseph
Missouri
Metro area
St. Joseph, MO-KS
Nearest major airport
STJ
6 mi · Rosecrans Meml
Median home value
$127,100
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 60% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 0.4% over the past year, to 31,284 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,700$58,801Bottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$4,210$30,762Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate21.6%Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.2 minBottom 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher15.4%Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment31,284Bottom 33%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.0%Top 14%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.4%Top 23%June 2026
Labor force32,650Bottom 32%June 2026
Labor force participation58.4%Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$57,160Bottom 10%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$47,350Bottom 22%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.3%Bottom 31%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Bottom 40%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202459k51k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $58,801 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 — St. Joseph, MO-KS
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides1,760$31,250
General and Operations Managers1,510$74,570
Registered Nurses1,490$77,240
Miscellaneous Assemblers and Fabricators1,360$54,400
Cashiers1,330$29,920
Retail Salespersons1,310$31,770

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 St. Joseph, MO, the city containing this ZIP code.

24% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 32% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 13.1 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
4
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.1
across all schools here
Math proficiency
24.1%
Bottom 22% in Missouri
Reading proficiency
32.4%
Bottom 18% in Missouri
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
BENTON HIGHST. JOSEPH68213.6
HOSEA ELEM.ST. JOSEPH42213.213%22%
HYDE ELEM.ST. JOSEPH35213.537%45%
Lake Early Learning CenterST. JOSEPH21111.1

72.2% 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 Missouri’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 $958 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.2 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
19.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$958
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$127,100
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.16Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate73.1%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2374,345Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$47$958Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$13,155$127,100Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.6%Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate10.5%Bottom 48%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 →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 88°F and January a low of 17°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 34.8 inches.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ST JOSEPH ROSECRANS AP, 5.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation34.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low17°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high88°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing50°F1991-2020 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

89 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are tornado, heat wave and hail.

HailModerate
Heat waveModerate
TornadoModerate
LightningModerate
DroughtModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, strong wind, landslide, winter weather, ice storm, inland flooding, wildfire, earthquake.

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.

Buchanan County records 2.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 16.9 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 20.5 per 100,000 residents in Buchanan County.

Homicide
2.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
16.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
20.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
19.3
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 Buchanan 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 64504 rather than 64504 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

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

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Rosecrans MemlSTJ6 mi8,061 ft
Kansas City IntlMCI29 mi10,801 ft
Topeka RgnlFOE65 mi12,803 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 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)
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

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.

64504 vs St. Joseph

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

64504
St. Joseph
Median household income
$58,801
vs
$57,956
Per capita income
$30,762
vs
$32,547
Population density
214/sq mi
vs
1,618/sq mi
Median home value
$127,100
vs
$154,200
Median gross rent
$958
vs
$898
Homeownership rate
73.1%
vs
62.8%
Bachelor's degree or higher
15.4%
vs
23.0%
Poverty rate
21.6%
vs
17.7%
Median age
38.9
vs
38.1

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.