44120Shaker Heights, Ohio

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 44120.

66out of 100
Area Score
Top 29% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 49% of 6,210 published ZIP areas55
Schools3417th of 4,422 published ZIP areas30
GrowthTop 38% of 5,428 published ZIP areas57
Housing affordabilityTop 38% of 6,685 published ZIP areas87
Climate3566th of 6,789 published ZIP areas69
Physical resilienceTop 1% of 6,709 published ZIP areas97
AccessTop 34% of 6,791 published ZIP areas96
Economic stability6397th of 6,742 published ZIP areas26
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.4% and median household income $47,126, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published ZIP profiles.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published ZIP profiles, placing 44120 in the top 1% for physical resilience.

A major airport is 15 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
33,202
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$47,126
Bottom 12% nationally
Density
6,340/sq mi
5.2 sq mi of land
Median age
43.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Shaker Heights
Ohio
Metro area
Cleveland, OH
Nearest major airport
CLE
15 mi · Cleveland-Hopkins Intl
Median home value
$111,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.4% is lower than 89% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 1.7% over the past year, to 14,505 employed residents.

40% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 79% of measured US ZIP areas.

Median household income of $47,126 is below 88% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,947$47,126Bottom 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,556$41,013Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate26.1%Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.9 minBottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher39.9%Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment14,505Bottom 9%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.7%Top 41%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.7%Bottom 28%June 2026
Labor force15,014Bottom 9%June 2026
Labor force participation58.1%Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$66,310Bottom 41%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$50,140Bottom 48%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.8%Bottom 10%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.4%Bottom 11%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202447k41k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $47,126 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 — Cleveland, OH
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
General and Operations Managers29,510$97,750
Registered Nurses28,240$83,940
Fast Food and Counter Workers28,010$28,750
Retail Salespersons24,650$31,000
Stockers and Order Fillers22,660$36,290
Home Health and Personal Care Aides19,400$34,520

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 Shaker Heights, OH, the city containing this ZIP code.

32% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 33% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.7 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
8
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
32.0%
Bottom 29% in Ohio
Reading proficiency
32.6%
Bottom 20% in Ohio
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Shaker Hts High SchoolShaker Heights City1,41814.0
Onaway Elementary SchoolShaker Heights City46219.370%70%
SunbeamCleveland Municipal45016.110%8%
Harvey Rice Elementary SchoolCleveland Municipal42717.15%7%
Andrew J RickoffCleveland Municipal39116.37%10%
Fernway Elementary SchoolShaker Heights City32623.375%75%
Southern Cleveland Drop Back Indba Innovative Career Academy · charterSouthern Cleveland Drop Back Indba Innovative Career Academy657.2
Boulevard Elementary SchoolShaker Heights City057%60%

36.7% 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 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 $931 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.4 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
23.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$931
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$111,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.36Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate49.5%Bottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±79720,490Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$35$931Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$22,214$111,400Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.7%Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate18.2%Top 30%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
57/ 100
Top 38% 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.

80% 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 1.9 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
56
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.9
Bottom 39% nationally
Year over year
+522%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
80.4%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Shaker Heights, OH, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 81°F and January a low of 24°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 33.3 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 54, in the Moderate band, and about 6 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 CLEVELAND BURKE AP, 6.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.7"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index77.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation33.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low24°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high81°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10062024 calendar year
Median air quality index54.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing45°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
54
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
77
90th percentile index
Days above 100
6
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

97 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are tornado and winter weather.

TornadoModerate
Winter weatherModerate

Low or minimal exposure: cold wave, inland flooding, heat wave, strong wind, lightning, ice storm, earthquake, hurricane, wildfire, hail, landslide, coastal flooding.

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.

Cuyahoga County records 11.6 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 16.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 23.5 per 100,000 residents in Cuyahoga County.

Homicide
11.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
16.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
23.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
13.3
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 Cuyahoga 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 44120 rather than 44120 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 15 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Cleveland-Hopkins IntlCLE15 mi9,953 ft
Akron-Canton RgnlCAK39 mi8,204 ft
Youngstown/Warren RgnlYNG49 mi9,003 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
66
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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.

44120 vs Shaker Heights

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

44120
Shaker Heights
Median household income
$47,126
vs
$104,073
Per capita income
$41,013
vs
$72,806
Population density
6,340/sq mi
vs
4,597/sq mi
Median home value
$111,400
vs
$303,200
Median gross rent
$931
vs
$1,168
Homeownership rate
49.5%
vs
60.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher
39.9%
vs
69.3%
Poverty rate
26.1%
vs
8.4%
Median age
43.6
vs
41.8

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.