Morris County, NJ

County Profile

514,528 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Morris County, NJ.

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.

74out of 100
Area Score
Top 10% of 1,225 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 12% of 1,255 counties measured78
SchoolsTop 1% of 973 counties measured99
Growth706th of 1,226 counties measured46
Housing affordability847th of 1,255 counties measured86
Climate722nd of 1,254 counties measured65
Physical resilience672nd of 1,255 counties measured58
AccessTop 26% of 1,255 counties measured91
Economic stabilityTop 2% of 1,255 counties measured97
The quick read

Morris County ranks in the top 12% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.8% and median household income of $137,326.

Residential permitting has slowed: 1,466 units authorized over the past twelve months, 18% below the prior year.

Rent takes 17% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 4.2 times that income.

At a glance

Population
514,528
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$137,326
Top 1% nationally
Density
1,116/sq mi
461.0 sq mi of land
Median age
42.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Morris County
New Jersey
Metro area
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ
Nearest major airport
EWR
23 mi · Newark Liberty Intl
Median home value
$582,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.8% is lower than 67% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 0.9% over the past year, to 267,171 employed residents.

58% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 99% of measured US locations.

Household income is higher than at least 99% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$2,991$137,326Top 1%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,025$71,044Top 1%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per-capita personal income$114,982Top 2%of 1,2062023
Poverty rate4.9%Bottom 1%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute32.1 minTop 15%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher57.8%Top 1%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Employment267,171Top 10%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.2%Bottom 44%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.9%Top 16%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force277,672Top 10%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force participation68.5%Top 6%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.8%Bottom 9%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate3.8%Bottom 33%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.02.4
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.8% 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
2021202220232024137k124k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $137,326 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 — New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides644,700$39,680
Retail Salespersons202,080$38,280
Registered Nurses197,740$119,720
Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners183,030$42,840
General and Operations Managers177,850$157,000
Cashiers173,830$35,950

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.

38% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 57% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 10.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
154
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
10.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
37.9%
Top 1% in New Jersey
Reading proficiency
56.6%
Top 1% in New Jersey
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Morristown High SchoolMorris School District1,81613.210%30%
Mount Olive High SchoolMount Olive Township School District1,52012.2
Morris Knolls High SchoolMorris Hills Regional School District1,45011.0
Randolph High SchoolRandolph Township School District1,27510.9
Chatham High SchoolSchool District of the Chathams1,20512.2
Roxbury High SchoolRoxbury Township School District1,17910.2
Dover High SchoolDover Public School District1,16712.7
Morris Hills High SchoolMorris Hills Regional School District1,1409.8
Mount Olive Middle SchoolMount Olive Township School District1,13710.136%63%
Frelinghuysen Middle SchoolMorris School District1,07810.526%62%
Parsippany Hills High SchoolParsippany-Troy Hills Township School District1,03510.0
Montville Township High SchoolMontville Township School District1,0359.8

18.7% 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 New Jersey’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 $1,904 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.2 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
16.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,904
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$582,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income4.24Top 16%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate74.3%Bottom 49%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±100199,506Top 5%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$30$1,904Top 2%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$5,640$582,500Top 3%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.6%Bottom 45%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate3.1%Bottom 1%of 3,2222024 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
46/ 100
Ranks 706 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, 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 grown 3% since 2020, reaching 523,053 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

At 2.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
1,466
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.8
Bottom 49% nationally
Year over year
−18%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
41.9%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024523k508k
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
2020202120222023202420252k1k
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−12%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 85°F and January a low of 23°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 44.9 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 37, in the Good band, and about 2 days a year pass 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 CALDWELL ESSEX CO AP, 13.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index58.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation44.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low23°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10022024 calendar year
Median air quality index37.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing45°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
37
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
58
90th percentile index
Days above 100
2
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

58 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Inland floodingElevated
Heat waveModerate
EarthquakeElevated
HurricaneModerate
LandslideModerate
DroughtModerate

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

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 — they say nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Morris County records 1.0 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 3.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 7.4 per 100,000 residents in Morris County.

Homicide
1.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
3.3
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
7.4
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
8.6
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 Morris 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 Morris County rather than Morris County 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
Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.
Taxes
Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 23 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Newark Liberty IntlEWR23 mi9,999 ft
John F Kennedy IntlJFK43 mi14,511 ft
New York Stewart IntlSWF50 mi11,817 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
74
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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)
IncomeU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Regional price parities and county personal income
2023Annually, each December
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.