Elk City, Oklahoma

Area Profile

11,361 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Elk City, in Beckham County.

49out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 12% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3124th of 3,904 published cities42
Schools1870th of 2,668 published cities36
Growth2550th of 2,973 published cities27
Housing affordabilityTop 30% of 4,223 published cities91
Climate3493rd of 4,223 published cities61
Physical resilience3006th of 4,182 published cities35
AccessTop 48% of 4,226 published cities92
Economic stability4056th of 4,226 published cities26
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.2% and the Opportunity signal places Elk City in the bottom 20%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 1 units authorized over the past twelve months, 67% below the prior year.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by tornado, drought and ice storm.

At a glance

Population
11,361
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$51,272
Bottom 25% nationally
Density
708/sq mi
16.1 sq mi of land
Median age
36.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Beckham County
Oklahoma
Metro area
Elk City, OK
Nearest major airport
CSM
13 mi · Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport
Median home value
$150,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 55% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 3.9% over the past year, to 8,589 employed residents.

Median household income of $51,272 is below 75% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,517$51,272Bottom 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,657$26,917Bottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate22.8%Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute15.1 minBottom 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher14.5%Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment8,589Bottom 2%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)7.5%Top 2%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.9%Bottom 3%June 2026
Labor force8,970Bottom 2%June 2026
Labor force participation56.7%Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.8%Top 9%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Bottom 45%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202451k44k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $51,272 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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Beckham County, OK, which contains this city.

24% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 23% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.8 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
24.0%
Bottom 40% in Oklahoma
Reading proficiency
23.4%
Bottom 30% in Oklahoma
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
ELK CITY ESELK CITY72916.622%17%
ELK CITY HSELK CITY62718.4
MERRITT ESMERRITT62118.335%43%
ELK CITY IESELK CITY46917.425%14%
ELK CITY MSELK CITY29714.83%12%
MERRITT HSMERRITT16511.8

58.1% 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 Oklahoma’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 $943 takes 22% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.9 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
22.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$943
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$150,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.93Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate64.3%Bottom 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2496,269Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$49$943Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$16,761$150,400Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income22.1%Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate20.6%Top 23%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
27/ 100
Ranks 2550 of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is broadly steady, measured from 2020 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 fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 11,383 in 2024.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

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

At 0.1 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
1
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.1
Bottom 8% nationally
Year over year
−67%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202412k11k
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
202020222023202420255.02.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2020 (−40%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 94°F and January a low of 28°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 23.9 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station CLINTON SHERMAN AP, 21.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND3.5"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation23.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low28°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high94°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing45°F1991-2020 Normals

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.

Physical risk

35 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are tornado, drought and ice storm.

Ice stormHigh
DroughtElevated
WildfireElevated
Winter weatherModerate
TornadoModerate
HailElevated
Strong windHigh
Cold waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, landslide, earthquake, lightning, inland flooding, hurricane.

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.

Beckham 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 17.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.8 per 100,000 residents in Beckham County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
16.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.5
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 Beckham 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 Elk City rather than Elk City 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

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 13 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Infinity One Oklahoma SpaceportCSM13 mi13,503 ft
Lawton-Fort Sill RgnlLAW81 mi8,599 ft
OKC Will Rogers IntlOKC103 mi9,802 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
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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
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

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 Elk City

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
7364414,043$53,18049