Berwick, Pennsylvania

Area Profile

10,317 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Berwick, in Columbia County.

60out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 46% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2787th of 3,904 published cities46
SchoolsTop 29% of 2,668 published cities68
Growth1961st of 2,973 published cities41
Housing affordabilityTop 18% of 4,223 published cities96
Climate2972nd of 4,223 published cities63
Physical resilience2150th of 4,182 published cities57
Access3909th of 4,226 published cities62
Economic stability3135th of 4,226 published cities46
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published city profiles: unemployment is 4.7% and the Opportunity signal places Berwick in the bottom 29%.

In the public schools here, 34% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 13.1 students for every teacher.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 19% of median household income and the median home is 3.1 times it.

At a glance

Population
10,317
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$49,800
Bottom 22% nationally
Density
3,356/sq mi
3.1 sq mi of land
Median age
40.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Columbia County
Pennsylvania
Metro area
Bloomsburg-Berwick, PA
Nearest major airport
MDT
65 mi · Harrisburg Intl
Median home value
$156,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.7% is lower than 36% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 3.3% over the past year, to 30,003 employed residents.

Median household income of $49,800 is below 78% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,192$49,800Bottom 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,756$29,403Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.5%Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute22.1 minBottom 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher21.3%Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment30,003Bottom 38%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.8%Bottom 22%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)3.3%Top 2%June 2026
Labor force31,475Bottom 38%June 2026
Labor force participation59.9%Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.6%Bottom 15%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.7%Top 36%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202450k44k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $49,800 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 Columbia County, PA, which contains this city.

34% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 58% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 13.1 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
4
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.1
across all schools here
Math proficiency
34.4%
Top 34% in Pennsylvania
Reading proficiency
57.7%
Top 37% in Pennsylvania
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Berwick Area MSBerwick Area SD83712.917%52%
Berwick Area HSBerwick Area SD69213.3
East Berwick El SchBerwick Area SD53913.157%69%
West Berwick El SchBerwick Area SD48713.239%55%

96.5% 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 Pennsylvania’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 $797 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.1 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
19.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$797
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$156,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.14Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate60.3%Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2524,927Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$91$797Bottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,745$156,500Bottom 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.2%Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate5.8%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 →
Development Momentum
41/ 100
Ranks 1961 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 been broadly flat since 2020, at 10,332 in 2024.

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

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

Units permitted
5
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.5
Bottom 21% nationally
Year over year
+67%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202410k10k
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
2020202120222023202420255.00.0
Annual totals from 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 20°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 38.7 inches, including 45.1 inches of snow.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station WILKES-BARRE INTL AP, 33.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation38.7"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall45.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low20°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high85°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing46°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

57 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Inland floodingElevated
HurricaneModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, landslide, lightning, heat wave, strong wind, earthquake, ice storm, cold wave, tornado, avalanche, wildfire, hail.

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.

Columbia County records 3.5 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 9.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 11.9 per 100,000 residents in Columbia County.

Homicide
3.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
9.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
11.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
14.5
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 Columbia 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 Berwick rather than Berwick 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 65 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Harrisburg IntlMDT65 mi10,001 ft
Elmira/Corning RgnlELM83 mi8,001 ft
Philadelphia IntlPHL97 mi12,000 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
60
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Other cities in Bloomsburg-Berwick, PA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
BloomsburgColumbia County13,02456vs Berwick

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

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 Berwick

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
1860318,827$60,35260