87532Española, New Mexico

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 87532.

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
Opportunity5362nd of 6,210 published ZIP areas35
Housing affordabilityTop 37% of 6,685 published ZIP areas88
Climate6748th of 6,789 published ZIP areas47
Physical resilience5986th of 6,709 published ZIP areas16
Access4296th of 6,791 published ZIP areas89
Economic stability6139th of 6,742 published ZIP areas31
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 4.3% and the Opportunity signal places 87532 in the bottom 14%.

Rent takes 18% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 4.1 times that income.

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

At a glance

Population
18,948
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$58,448
Bottom 27% nationally
Density
173/sq mi
109.5 sq mi of land
Median age
38.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Española
New Mexico
Metro area
Santa Fe, NM
Nearest major airport
SAF
26 mi · Santa Fe Rgnl
Median home value
$238,800
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.3% is lower than 56% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 2.1% over the past year, to 69,827 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,819$58,448Bottom 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,038$32,609Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate17.2%Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute32.3 minTop 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher23.2%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment69,827Top 43%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-2.6%Bottom 14%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.1%Bottom 17%June 2026
Labor force72,951Top 43%June 2026
Labor force participation55.2%Bottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$62,760Bottom 30%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,710Bottom 34%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.3%Top 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.3%Bottom 44%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202458k51k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $58,448 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 — Santa Fe, NM
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive2,410$50,170
Retail Salespersons2,320$35,960
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,950$30,810
Waiters and Waitresses1,680$46,640
General and Operations Managers1,630$106,770
Home Health and Personal Care Aides1,470$31,540

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 Española, NM, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 13.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
8
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
MCCURDY CHARTER SCHOOL · charterMCCURDY CHARTER SCHOOL55713.9
CARLOS F. VIGIL MIDDLEESPANOLA37914.6
EUTIMIO SALAZAR ELEMENTARYESPANOLA33913.0
JAMES RODRIGUEZ ELEMENTARYESPANOLA23313.7
TONY QUINTANA ELEMENTARYESPANOLA20812.2
HERNANDEZ ELEMENTARYESPANOLA859.4
LOS NINOS ELEMENTARYESPANOLA7110.1
ESPANOLA VALLEY HIGHESPANOLA0

95.9% 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 New Mexico’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 $877 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.1 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
18.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$877
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$238,800
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.09Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate72.8%Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4608,741Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$59$877Bottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$11,211$238,800Top 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.0%Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate14.8%Top 38%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

3 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 74°F and January a low of 9°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 25.5 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.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station LOS ALAMOS 13 W, 23.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index71.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation25.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low9°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high74°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months31991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index45.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing37°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
45
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
71
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

16 / 100
Physical resilience

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

WildfireHigh
Inland floodingElevated
EarthquakeElevated
DroughtModerate

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

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.

Santa Fe County records 4.7 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 10.9 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 65.4 per 100,000 residents in Santa Fe County.

Homicide
4.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
10.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
65.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.0
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 Santa Fe 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 87532 rather than 87532 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

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 26 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Santa Fe RgnlSAF26 mi8,366 ft
Taos RgnlSKX41 mi8,600 ft
Angel FireAXX55 mi8,900 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
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.

87532 vs Española

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

87532
Española
Median household income
$58,448
vs
$47,667
Per capita income
$32,609
vs
$27,745
Population density
173/sq mi
vs
1,274/sq mi
Median home value
$238,800
vs
$210,800
Median gross rent
$877
vs
$829
Homeownership rate
72.8%
vs
65.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher
23.2%
vs
18.3%
Poverty rate
17.2%
vs
20.4%
Median age
38.9
vs
35.7

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.