44203Norton, Ohio

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 44203.

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
OpportunityTop 41% of 6,210 published ZIP areas59
SchoolsTop 38% of 4,422 published ZIP areas61
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 published ZIP areas100
Climate4609th of 6,789 published ZIP areas64
Physical resilienceTop 10% of 6,709 published ZIP areas90
AccessTop 21% of 6,791 published ZIP areas98
Economic stability4396th of 6,742 published ZIP areas51
The quick read

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 16% of median household income and the median home is 2.5 times it.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published ZIP profiles, placing 44203 in the top 10% for physical resilience.

A major airport is 12 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
38,701
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$63,759
Bottom 37% nationally
Density
1,105/sq mi
35.0 sq mi of land
Median age
43.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Norton
Ohio
Metro area
Akron, OH
Nearest major airport
CAK
12 mi · Akron-Canton Rgnl
Median home value
$159,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.7% is lower than 78% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 0.1% over the past year, to 262,366 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,627$63,759Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,166$36,138Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate12.3%Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.2 minBottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher21.2%Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment262,366Top 19%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.3%Bottom 45%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.1%Top 27%June 2026
Labor force272,581Top 19%June 2026
Labor force participation60.6%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$63,430Bottom 31%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,840Bottom 35%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-1.3%Bottom 4%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.7%Bottom 22%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202464k53k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $63,759 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 — Akron, OH
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers9,480$28,690
General and Operations Managers9,010$98,340
Stockers and Order Fillers8,780$37,600
Registered Nurses8,040$80,770
Retail Salespersons7,770$31,060
Home Health and Personal Care Aides6,310$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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Norton, OH, the city containing this ZIP code.

63% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 58% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
63.2%
Top 29% in Ohio
Reading proficiency
58.1%
Top 42% in Ohio
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Barberton High SchoolBarberton City1,18615.0
Norton High SchoolNorton City74616.6
Barberton Middle SchoolBarberton City74114.552%52%
Barberton Primary SchoolBarberton City67116.457%49%
Barberton Intermediate SchoolBarberton City65519.859%52%
Norton Middle SchoolNorton City65517.271%69%
Norton Elementary SchoolNorton City56414.882%72%
Norton Primary Elementary SchoolNorton City22014.7
Barberton PreschoolBarberton City18927.0

72.6% 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 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 $869 takes 16% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.5 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
16.4%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$869
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$159,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.50Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate71.7%Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±55318,257Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$42$869Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$4,116$159,700Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.4%Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.8%Bottom 32%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

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 21°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 32.5 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 44, 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 AKRON FULTON INTL AP, 8.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index70.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation32.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low21°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index44.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing46°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
44
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
70
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

90 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hail, strong wind and heat wave.

HailElevated
Strong windModerate
Ice stormModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, lightning, inland flooding, tornado, earthquake, cold wave, hurricane, wildfire, landslide, drought.

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.

Summit County records 8.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 14.0 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 21.5 per 100,000 residents in Summit County.

Homicide
8.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
14.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
21.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
17.7
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 Summit 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 44203 rather than 44203 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

6 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 12 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Akron-Canton RgnlCAK12 mi8,204 ft
Cleveland-Hopkins IntlCLE29 mi9,953 ft
Mansfield Lahm RgnlMFD48 mi9,001 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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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
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.

44203 vs Norton

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

44203
Norton
Median household income
$63,759
vs
$90,464
Per capita income
$36,138
vs
$41,867
Population density
1,105/sq mi
vs
571/sq mi
Median home value
$159,700
vs
$200,800
Median gross rent
$869
vs
$1,059
Homeownership rate
71.7%
vs
87.4%
Bachelor's degree or higher
21.2%
vs
26.2%
Poverty rate
12.3%
vs
6.1%
Median age
43.5
vs
47.1

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.