Weakley County, TN

County Profile

33,016 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Weakley 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.

56out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 27% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity1188th of 1,255 counties24
SchoolsTop 7% of 973 counties85
Growth1048th of 1,226 counties30
Housing affordabilityTop 28% of 1,255 counties99
ClimateTop 20% of 1,254 counties75
Physical resilience780th of 1,255 counties52
Access1097th of 1,255 counties55
Economic stability1073rd of 1,255 counties36
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published profiles: unemployment is 4.9% and the Opportunity signal places Weakley County in the bottom 5%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 54 units authorized over the past twelve months, 21% below the prior year.

Rent takes 19% 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
33,016
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$51,880
Bottom 17% nationally
Density
57/sq mi
580.4 sq mi of land
Median age
37.3
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Weakley County
Tennessee
Metro area
Martin, TN
Nearest major airport
BYH
72 mi · Arkansas Intl
Median home value
$151,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.9% is lower than 25% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment fell 2.6% over the past year, to 12,993 employed residents.

Median household income of $51,880 is below 83% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$2,769$51,880Bottom 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,276$28,035Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate19.0%Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute22.5 minBottom 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher22.7%Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment12,993Bottom 9%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-2.0%Bottom 23%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.6%Bottom 12%June 2026
Labor force13,665Bottom 9%June 2026
Labor force participation55.1%Bottom 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.1%Top 44%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.9%Top 25%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/065.13.1
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.9% 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
202120222023202452k44k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $51,880 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.

43% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 37% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

Public schools
11
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
Math proficiency
42.7%
Top 14% in Tennessee
Reading proficiency
37.0%
Top 17% in Tennessee
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Westview High SchoolWeakley County611
Martin PrimaryWeakley County470
Greenfield SchoolWeakley County45447%43%
Dresden ElementaryWeakley County44050%37%
Martin Middle SchoolWeakley County40827%27%
Gleason SchoolWeakley County39333%35%
Martin ElementaryWeakley County39140%45%
Dresden Middle SchoolWeakley County33556%32%
Dresden High SchoolWeakley County301
Sharon SchoolWeakley County19052%41%
Weakley County Center For Adult Continuing EducationWeakley County0

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 $803 takes 19% 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
18.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$803
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$151,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.91Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate66.3%Bottom 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3015,056Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$43$803Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$12,945$151,200Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.6%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate11.1%Bottom 35%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
30/ 100
Ranks 1048 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, 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 33,162 in 2024.

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

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

At 1.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
54
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.6
Bottom 28% nationally
Year over year
−21%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202433k33k
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
20222023202420257262
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−14%).

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 88°F and January a low of 27°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 53.6 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station DRESDEN, 1.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation53.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low27°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high88°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing42°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

52 / 100
Physical resilience

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

EarthquakeModerate
Cold waveModerate
Ice stormModerate
TornadoModerate
Winter weatherModerate
Strong windModerate
DroughtModerate
LandslideModerate

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

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.

Weakley County records 4.8 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 21.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 11.0 per 100,000 residents in Weakley County.

Homicide
4.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
21.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
11.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.4
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 Weakley 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 Weakley County rather than Weakley 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 72 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Arkansas IntlBYH72 mi11,602 ft
Millington/MemphisNQA92 mi8,001 ft
Veterans Airport of Southern IllinoisMWA102 mi8,012 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
56
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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

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 Weakley County, TN