Newberry, South Carolina

Area Profile

10,790 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Newberry, in Newberry County.

60out of 100
Area Score
Top 50% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2320th of 3,904 cities measured52
Schools2351st of 2,668 cities measured21
GrowthTop 21% of 2,973 cities measured67
Housing affordabilityTop 15% of 4,223 cities measured97
ClimateTop 48% of 4,223 cities measured71
Physical resilienceTop 46% of 4,182 cities measured63
Access3163rd of 4,226 cities measured82
Economic stability4061st of 4,226 cities measured26
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.6% and median household income $51,260, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

In the public schools here, 17% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 11.8 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 2.8 times it.

At a glance

Population
10,790
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$51,260
Bottom 25% nationally
Density
1,176/sq mi
9.2 sq mi of land
Median age
29.3
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Newberry County
South Carolina
Metro area
Newberry, SC
Nearest major airport
CAE
36 mi · Columbia Metro
Median home value
$142,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.6% is lower than 39% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 0.8% over the past year, to 18,319 employed residents.

Median household income of $51,260 is below 75% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$6,611$51,260Bottom 25%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,587$21,824Bottom 12%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate31.5%Top 9%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.5 minBottom 49%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher19.7%Bottom 48%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment18,319Bottom 22%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.4%Top 28%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.8%Top 14%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force19,196Bottom 22%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation55.6%Bottom 34%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 45%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate4.6%Top 39%of 3,904June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202451k44k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $51,260 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 Newberry County, SC, which contains this city.

17% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 22% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 11.8 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
11.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
17.2%
Bottom 4% in South Carolina
Reading proficiency
22.3%
Bottom 2% in South Carolina
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Newberry MiddleNewberry 0162912.312%22%
Boundary St. ElementaryNewberry 0142911.328%32%
Newberry ElementaryNewberry 0142111.415%15%
Gallman ElementaryNewberry 0140810.718%18%
Reuben ElementaryNewberry 0115016.710%30%
Newberry County Career CenterNewberry 010

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 South Carolina’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 $831 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.8 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
19.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.8×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$831
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$142,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income2.78Bottom 46%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate50.1%Bottom 9%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3024,509Top 13%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$106$831Bottom 32%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$42,088$142,400Bottom 35%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.5%Top 44%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate12.7%Top 41%of 32,0012024 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
67/ 100
Top 21% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, measured from 2022 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 grown 2% since 2020, reaching 10,874 in 2024.

Permitting has turned upward after moving the other way the year before.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 16% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 3.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
38
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
3.5
Top 39% nationally
Year over year
+1800%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
15.8%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202411k11k
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
2022202320242025543.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−74%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 31°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 46.6 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station NEWBERRY, 1.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation46.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low31°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing38°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

63 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Ice stormModerate
EarthquakeElevated
HurricaneElevated
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: tornado, cold wave, inland flooding, heat wave, hail, wildfire, drought, strong wind, landslide, winter weather.

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.

Violent crime
568
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year
Property crime
2,601
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year

Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.

Newberry's police department reported 568 violent offences per 100,000 residents, higher than most places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 2,601.

Newberry County records 7.0 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 25.8 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 21.7 per 100,000 residents in Newberry County.

Homicide
7.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
25.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
21.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
28.3
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.

Offences are reported to the FBI by Newberry’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Newberry 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 Newberry rather than Newberry 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.

Taxes
Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 36 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Columbia MetroCAE36 mi8,601 ft
Donaldson FldGYH55 mi8,000 ft
Augusta Rgnl At Bush FldAGS66 mi8,001 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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Area Score
60
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
safetyFederal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
2025 calendar yearAnnually, with monthly revisions
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 Newberry

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
2910819,585$53,55860