18510Scranton, Pennsylvania

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 18510.

54out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 27% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3780th of 6,210 published ZIP areas50
Schools3452nd of 4,422 published ZIP areas29
Growth3269th of 5,428 published ZIP areas44
Housing affordabilityTop 49% of 6,685 published ZIP areas81
Climate4704th of 6,789 published ZIP areas63
Physical resilienceTop 43% of 6,709 published ZIP areas64
Access6510th of 6,791 published ZIP areas52
Economic stability6478th of 6,742 published ZIP areas23
The quick read

Unemployment is 5.1% and median household income $53,235, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published ZIP profiles.

In the public schools here, 10% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 15.7 students for every teacher.

Rent takes 24% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.4 times that income.

At a glance

Population
14,332
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$53,235
Bottom 19% nationally
Density
7,953/sq mi
1.8 sq mi of land
Median age
31.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Scranton
Pennsylvania
Metro area
Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA
Nearest major airport
SWF
80 mi · New York Stewart Intl
Median home value
$181,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.1% is lower than 25% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 2.5% over the past year, to 33,765 employed residents.

Median household income of $53,235 is below 81% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$10,914$53,235Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,596$25,900Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate24.1%Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.9 minBottom 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher27.1%Top 40%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment33,765Bottom 35%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.2%Top 34%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)2.5%Top 3%June 2026
Labor force35,579Bottom 35%June 2026
Labor force participation46.8%Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$56,800Bottom 9%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$46,330Bottom 13%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.7%Top 22%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.1%Top 25%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202453k43k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $53,235 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 — Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Stockers and Order Fillers10,250$37,410
Home Health and Personal Care Aides9,970$29,460
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand9,630$42,900
Fast Food and Counter Workers6,450$27,520
Retail Salespersons6,330$30,020
General and Operations Managers6,010$93,820

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 Scranton, PA, the city containing this ZIP code.

10% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 39% 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
3
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
9.6%
Bottom 16% in Pennsylvania
Reading proficiency
39.3%
Bottom 34% in Pennsylvania
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Scranton HSScranton SD1,81520.4
Northeast Intrmd SchScranton SD89410.95%37%
William Prescott #38Scranton SD20413.630%50%

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 $1,074 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.4 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
24.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,074
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$181,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.41Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate40.4%Bottom 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4075,795Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$52$1,074Top 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,874$181,600Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income24.2%Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate10.5%Bottom 48%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
44/ 100
Ranks 3269 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.

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 ZIP areas.

Units permitted
4
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.1
Bottom 4% nationally
Year over year
+100%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Scranton, PA, the city containing this ZIP code.

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.

Air quality measures a median index of 40, 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 WILKES-BARRE INTL AP, 6.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index58.02024 calendar year
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
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index40.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing46°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
40
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
58
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

64 / 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, lightning, cold wave, heat wave, earthquake, landslide, ice storm, tornado, strong wind, wildfire, avalanche, hail.

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.

Lackawanna County records 3.2 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 8.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 19.0 per 100,000 residents in Lackawanna County.

Homicide
3.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
19.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
12.0
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 Lackawanna 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 18510 rather than 18510 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 80 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
New York Stewart IntlSWF80 mi11,817 ft
Elmira/Corning RgnlELM83 mi8,001 ft
Newark Liberty IntlEWR91 mi9,999 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)
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.

18510 vs Scranton

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

18510
Scranton
Median household income
$53,235
vs
$50,739
Per capita income
$25,900
vs
$28,347
Population density
7,953/sq mi
vs
3,004/sq mi
Median home value
$181,600
vs
$158,100
Median gross rent
$1,074
vs
$1,048
Homeownership rate
40.4%
vs
49.9%
Bachelor's degree or higher
27.1%
vs
23.1%
Poverty rate
24.1%
vs
23.0%
Median age
31.0
vs
37.2

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.