Yankton County, SD

County Profile

23,414 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Yankton County, SD.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

64out of 100
Area Score
Top 44% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 32% of 1,255 counties64
Schools538th of 973 counties46
GrowthTop 32% of 1,226 counties59
Housing affordabilityTop 28% of 1,255 counties99
Climate1104th of 1,254 counties56
Physical resilience699th of 1,255 counties56
Access926th of 1,255 counties68
Economic stabilityTop 42% of 1,255 counties67
The quick read

Unemployment is 1.9% and median household income $72,821, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

In the public schools here, 47% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 16.8 students for every teacher.

175 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, within 4% of the prior year — steady rather than turning.

At a glance

Population
23,414
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$72,821
Top 31% nationally
Density
45/sq mi
521.2 sq mi of land
Median age
42.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Yankton County
South Dakota
Metro area
Yankton, SD
Nearest major airport
FSD
51 mi · Joe Foss Fld
Median home value
$225,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 1.9% is lower than 100% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 1.6% over the past year, to 11,985 employed residents.

31% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 80% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$7,170$72,821Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,858$41,047Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate11.9%Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute16.1 minBottom 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher31.4%Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment11,985Bottom 7%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-2.2%Bottom 20%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.6%Bottom 28%June 2026
Labor force12,221Bottom 7%June 2026
Labor force participation61.9%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.1%Bottom 39%June 2026
Unemployment rate1.9%Bottom 1%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/062.71.3
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 1.9% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202474k67k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $72,821 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.

47% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 51% 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
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
46.8%
Top 36% in South Dakota
Reading proficiency
51.1%
Bottom 36% in South Dakota
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Yankton High School - 01Yankton School District 63-392318.1
Yankton Middle School - 02Yankton School District 63-360816.957%57%
Lincoln Elementary - 04Yankton School District 63-341616.050%59%
Beadle Elementary - 03Yankton School District 63-341215.850%56%
Webster Elementary - 06Yankton School District 63-339123.030%36%
Stewart Elementary - 05Yankton School District 63-327112.955%54%
Gayville-Volin Elementary - 02Gayville-Volin School District 63-113613.622%22%
Gayville-Volin High School - 01Gayville-Volin School District 63-19515.8
Gayville-Volin Middle School - 03Gayville-Volin School District 63-15016.725%45%
Jamesville Colony Elementary - 03Menno School District 33-2199.5

34.0% 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 South Dakota’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 $781 takes 13% 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
12.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$781
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$225,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.10Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate72.7%Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3510,616Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$58$781Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$15,221$225,900Top 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income12.9%Bottom 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.7%Bottom 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
59/ 100
Top 32% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing — 2 consecutive years, 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 1% since 2020, reaching 23,509 in 2024.

69% 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 7.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
175
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
7.5
Top 15% nationally
Year over year
−4%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
69.1%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202424k23k
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
202220232024202518291
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was close to 2022 (−4%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 87°F and January a low of 10°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 28.7 inches, including 38.1 inches of snow.

0°20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station YANKTON 2 E, 9.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation28.7"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall38.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low10°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high87°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing55°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

56 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, tornado and cold wave.

DroughtElevated
Winter weatherModerate
TornadoHigh
HailElevated
LightningModerate
WildfireModerate
Cold waveElevated
Heat waveModerate
Strong windModerate
Inland floodingModerate

Low or minimal exposure: ice storm, landslide, earthquake.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Yankton County records 2.9 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Drug overdose deaths run at 6.1 per 100,000 residents in Yankton County.

Homicide
2.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
6.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
19.3
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 Yankton 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 Yankton County rather than Yankton County 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 51 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Joe Foss FldFSD51 mi9,000 ft
Sioux Gateway/Brig General Bud Day FldSUX66 mi9,002 ft
Eppley AirfieldOMA140 mi9,502 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.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
64
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

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.

Cities in Yankton County, SD