13126Oswego, New York

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 13126.

61out of 100
Area Score
Top 47% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3630th of 6,210 published ZIP areas51
Schools2748th of 4,422 published ZIP areas42
Growth4622nd of 5,428 published ZIP areas29
Housing affordabilityTop 18% of 6,685 published ZIP areas96
Climate5792nd of 6,789 published ZIP areas60
Physical resilienceTop 17% of 6,709 published ZIP areas84
Access4692nd of 6,791 published ZIP areas86
Economic stability5788th of 6,742 published ZIP areas36
The quick read

Residential permitting has slowed: 8 units authorized over the past twelve months, 58% below the prior year.

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 13126 in the top 17% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
36,495
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$65,346
Bottom 39% nationally
Density
363/sq mi
100.7 sq mi of land
Median age
35.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Oswego
New York
Metro area
Syracuse, NY
Nearest major airport
SYR
29 mi · Syracuse Hancock Intl
Median home value
$145,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

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

Employment fell 1.2% over the past year, to 53,039 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,225$65,346Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,462$33,545Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.8%Top 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.4 minBottom 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher27.4%Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment53,039Top 50%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.8%Top 39%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.2%Bottom 41%June 2026
Labor force55,428Bottom 49%June 2026
Labor force participation58.3%Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$67,470Top 48%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$52,990Top 36%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.5%Top 31%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.3%Bottom 44%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202465k58k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $65,346 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 — Syracuse, NY
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides8,310$37,440
Registered Nurses8,180$86,960
Retail Salespersons8,150$35,250
Fast Food and Counter Workers6,750$33,940
Stockers and Order Fillers6,640$38,950
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand6,390$44,660

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 Oswego, NY, the city containing this ZIP code.

28% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 46% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 12.7 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
28.1%
Bottom 31% in New York
Reading proficiency
45.6%
Bottom 32% in New York
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
OSWEGO HIGH SCHOOLOSWEGO CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT1,07912.5
OSWEGO MIDDLE SCHOOLOSWEGO CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT57211.922%57%
KINGSFORD PARK ELEMENTARY SCHOOLOSWEGO CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT39714.222%46%
CHARLES E RILEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLOSWEGO CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT39013.434%35%
FITZHUGH PARK ELEMENTARY SCHOOLOSWEGO CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT31911.435%37%
LEIGHTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLOSWEGO CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT29413.433%46%

42.3% 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 York’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 $1,064 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
19.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.2×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,064
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$145,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.23Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate65.5%Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±45215,648Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$58$1,064Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$6,767$145,400Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.5%Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate13.1%Top 43%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
29/ 100
Ranks 4622 of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

100% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 0.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
8
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.5
Bottom 15% nationally
Year over year
−58%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
100.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Oswego, NY, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

5 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 16°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 39.6 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 32, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station FULTON OSWEGO CO AP, 7.2 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index44.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation39.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low16°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high80°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index32.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing47°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
32
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
44
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

84 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, ice storm and heat wave.

Ice stormModerate
Inland floodingModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, strong wind, earthquake, lightning, hurricane, landslide, tornado, wildfire, coastal flooding, hail, cold wave, drought, avalanche.

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.

Oswego County records 1.9 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 11.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.1 per 100,000 residents in Oswego County.

Homicide
1.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
11.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
16.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
21.2
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 Oswego 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 13126 rather than 13126 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 29 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Syracuse Hancock IntlSYR29 mi9,013 ft
Griffiss IntlRME55 mi11,820 ft
Frederick Douglass/Greater Rochester IntlROC65 mi8,001 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
61
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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)
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.

13126 vs Oswego

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

13126
Oswego
Median household income
$65,346
vs
$53,172
Per capita income
$33,545
vs
$32,279
Population density
363/sq mi
vs
2,237/sq mi
Median home value
$145,400
vs
$120,600
Median gross rent
$1,064
vs
$1,109
Homeownership rate
65.5%
vs
50.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher
27.4%
vs
26.1%
Poverty rate
16.8%
vs
20.6%
Median age
35.0
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.