Athens, Ohio

Area Profile

23,396 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Athens, in Athens County.

43out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 3% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3583rd of 3,904 published cities32
SchoolsTop 26% of 2,668 published cities70
Growth2289th of 2,973 published cities34
Housing affordability4068th of 4,223 published cities39
Climate2862nd of 4,223 published cities64
Physical resilience3306th of 4,182 published cities25
Access3777th of 4,226 published cities68
Economic stability3976th of 4,226 published cities29
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 5.3% and the Opportunity signal places Athens in the bottom 8%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 17 units authorized over the past twelve months, 69% below the prior year.

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

At a glance

Population
23,396
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$38,204
Bottom 9% nationally
Density
2,352/sq mi
9.9 sq mi of land
Median age
21.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Athens County
Ohio
Metro area
Athens, OH
Nearest major airport
LCK
55 mi · Rickenbacker Intl
Median home value
$247,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.3% is lower than 16% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 2.4% over the past year, to 10,140 employed residents.

64% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 95% of measured US cities.

Median household income of $38,204 is below 91% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$8,071$38,204Bottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,271$26,028Bottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate40.0%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute17.1 minBottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher64.1%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment10,140Bottom 3%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.3%Top 44%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.4%Bottom 14%June 2026
Labor force10,703Bottom 3%June 2026
Labor force participation59.4%Bottom 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-1.1%Bottom 4%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.3%Top 16%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/067.62.6
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 5.3% 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
202120222023202438k34k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $38,204 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.

63% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 67% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
3
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
63.4%
Top 33% in Ohio
Reading proficiency
67.5%
Top 24% in Ohio
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Morrison Gordon Elementary SchoolAthens City School District39318.758%68%
Athens Middle SchoolAthens City School District36011.672%67%
East Elementary SchoolAthens City School District32913.761%68%

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 Ohio’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 $1,011 takes 32% of median household income, above the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 6.5 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
31.8%
Above the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
6.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,011
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$247,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income6.47Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate32.6%Bottom 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3628,221Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$82$1,011Top 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$17,770$247,000Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income31.8%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate12.0%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
34/ 100
Ranks 2289 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, measured from 2022 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 4% since 2020, reaching 24,824 in 2024.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 0.7 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
17
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.7
Bottom 25% nationally
Year over year
−69%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202425k21k
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
2022202320242025853.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−20%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 82°F and January a low of 22°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 41.6 inches, including 17.6 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 28, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ATHENS OU, 0.3 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index49.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation41.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall17.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low22°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index28.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing43°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
28
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
49
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

25 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Inland floodingHigh
Ice stormModerate
HailModerate
TornadoModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, heat wave, lightning, strong wind, hurricane, earthquake, drought, winter weather, cold wave, wildfire.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. 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.

Athens County records 0.0 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 13.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 23.9 per 100,000 residents in Athens County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
13.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
23.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.7
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 Athens 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 Athens rather than Athens 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 55 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Rickenbacker IntlLCK55 mi11,902 ft
John Glenn Columbus IntlCMH63 mi10,114 ft
Wilmington Air ParkILN91 mi10,701 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
43
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Put Athens side by side with a similar place.

Athens vs ClearlakeAthens vs EllensburgAthens vs LamontAthens vs Gretna

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.

ZIP codes in Athens

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
4570133,329$53,07548