Carson City, NV

County Profile

58,384 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Carson City, NV.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

54out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 23% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity630th of 1,255 counties56
GrowthTop 27% of 1,226 counties63
Housing affordability1138th of 1,255 counties64
Climate1149th of 1,254 counties54
Physical resilience1116th of 1,255 counties25
AccessTop 27% of 1,255 counties90
Economic stabilityTop 37% of 1,255 counties70
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.9% and median household income $72,355, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 6.3 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 21% of it.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake and wildfire.

At a glance

Population
58,384
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$72,355
Top 32% nationally
Density
404/sq mi
144.5 sq mi of land
Median age
42.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Carson City
Nevada
Metro area
Carson City, NV
Nearest major airport
TVL
22 mi · Lake Tahoe
Median home value
$453,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 62% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 2.0% over the past year, to 28,272 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,090$72,355Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,316$39,432Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate10.3%Bottom 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute22.6 minBottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher23.7%Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment28,272Bottom 37%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)2.1%Top 28%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.0%Bottom 20%June 2026
Labor force29,429Bottom 37%June 2026
Labor force participation59.1%Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.4%Bottom 23%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 38%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/064.83.4
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.9% 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
202120222023202472k62k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $72,355 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 — Carson City, NV
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive960$49,270
General and Operations Managers890$103,160
Registered Nurses820$101,370
Retail Salespersons740$37,490
Fast Food and Counter Workers670$30,010
Cashiers600$34,310

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.

29% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 38% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.9 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.9
across all schools here
Math proficiency
29.1%
2019-20 school year
Reading proficiency
38.0%
2019-20 school year
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Eagle Valley Middle SchoolCarson City85417.817%37%
Carson Middle SchoolCarson City83317.719%43%
Fremont ElementaryCarson City55315.433%27%
Bordewich/Bray ElementaryCarson City53915.932%39%
Al Seeliger ElementaryCarson City52717.045%42%
Edith W. Fritsch ElementaryCarson City50016.742%45%
Mark Twain ElementaryCarson City49716.032%37%
Empire ElementaryCarson City44516.525%29%
Carson Montessori · charterCarson City27919.930%43%
Carson High SchoolCarson City0

80.9% 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 Nevada’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 $1,248 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.3 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
20.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,248
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$453,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income6.26Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate62.3%Bottom 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±8825,156Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$61$1,248Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$11,997$453,000Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.7%Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate5.8%Bottom 9%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
63/ 100
Top 27% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, measured from 2020 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 fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 58,148 in 2024.

At 7.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
443
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
7.6
Top 14% nationally
Year over year
−1%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
36.8%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202459k58k
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
202020212022202320242025573242
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+118%).

Weather & climate

3 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 80°F and January a low of 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 20.5 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 45, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station SOUTH LAKE TAHOE AP, 22.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index61.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation20.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low18°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high80°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months31991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index45.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing31°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
45
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
61
90th percentile index
Days above 100
1
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

25 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake and wildfire.

EarthquakeElevated
WildfireHigh

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, avalanche, heat wave, lightning, volcanic activity, inland flooding, landslide, hail, strong wind, drought, tornado.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Carson City records 4.2 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 31.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 17.2 per 100,000 residents in Carson City.

Homicide
4.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
31.0
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
17.2
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
37.9
per 100,000 residents

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 Carson City 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 Carson City rather than Carson City 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 22 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Lake TahoeTVL22 mi8,541 ft
Reno/Tahoe IntlRNO24 mi11,001 ft
Reno/SteadRTS36 mi9,000 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
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.

Cities in Carson City, NV