Dyer County, TN

County Profile

36,508 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Dyer County, TN.

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.

63out of 100
Area Score
Top 46% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity771st of 1,255 counties50
SchoolsTop 8% of 973 counties84
Growth864th of 1,226 counties39
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties100
ClimateTop 40% of 1,254 counties71
Physical resilience862nd of 1,255 counties46
AccessTop 46% of 1,255 counties83
Economic stability881st of 1,255 counties49
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.8% and median household income $58,154, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

73 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, within 13% of the prior year — steady rather than turning.

Rent takes 16% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 2.9 times that income.

At a glance

Population
36,508
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$58,154
Bottom 30% nationally
Density
71/sq mi
512.4 sq mi of land
Median age
40.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Dyer County
Tennessee
Metro area
Dyersburg, TN
Nearest major airport
BYH
31 mi · Arkansas Intl
Median home value
$166,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.8% is lower than 67% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 1.1% over the past year, to 17,482 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$3,239$58,154Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$7,438$37,772Top 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate16.3%Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.7 minBottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher21.1%Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment17,482Bottom 18%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.5%Top 35%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.1%Bottom 39%June 2026
Labor force18,165Bottom 18%June 2026
Labor force participation58.6%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 32%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.8%Bottom 33%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.42.9
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.8% 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
202120222023202458k50k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $58,154 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.

46% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 34% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

Public schools
12
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
Math proficiency
45.8%
Top 8% in Tennessee
Reading proficiency
34.4%
Top 25% in Tennessee
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Dyer County High SchoolDyer County1,052
Dyersburg PrimaryDyersburg744
Dyersburg High SchoolDyersburg680
Dyersburg Intermediate SchoolDyersburg58733%29%
Dyersburg Middle SchoolDyersburg57452%32%
Fifth Consolidated SchoolDyer County53763%50%
Newbern Elementary SchoolDyer County52740%34%
Northview Middle SchoolDyer County44547%32%
Three Oaks Middle SchoolDyer County38742%37%
Holice Powell ElementaryDyer County25247%38%
Finley ElementaryDyer County23445%25%
Trimble ElementaryDyer County16637%23%

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 Tennessee’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 $782 takes 16% 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
16.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$782
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$166,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.86Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate61.9%Bottom 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2516,311Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$48$782Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$9,939$166,400Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.1%Bottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate9.5%Bottom 27%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
39/ 100
Ranks 864 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is broadly steady, 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 fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 36,403 in 2024.

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

At 2.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
73
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.0
Bottom 35% nationally
Year over year
−13%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202437k36k
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
20222023202420257559
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+19%).

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 29°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 53.3 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 31, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station DYERSBURG III GOLF, 3.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index53.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation53.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low29°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index31.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing42°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
31
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
53
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

46 / 100
Physical resilience

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

EarthquakeModerate
TornadoElevated
Ice stormModerate
Winter weatherModerate
DroughtModerate
Strong windModerate
LandslideModerate

Low or minimal exposure: heat wave, cold wave, lightning, hurricane, inland flooding, hail, wildfire.

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.

Dyer County records 15.1 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 35.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.3 per 100,000 residents in Dyer County.

Homicide
15.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
35.6
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
16.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
30.1
per 100,000 residents

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 Dyer 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 Dyer County rather than Dyer 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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 31 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Arkansas IntlBYH31 mi11,602 ft
Millington/MemphisNQA55 mi8,001 ft
Frederick W Smith Intl/MemphisMEM77 mi11,120 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
63
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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
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.

Cities in Dyer County, TN