Powell, Tennessee

Area Profile

13,739 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Powell, in Knox County.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signal: growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 20% of 3,904 published cities72
Schools2339th of 2,668 published cities21
Housing affordabilityTop 28% of 4,223 published cities92
ClimateTop 25% of 4,223 published cities76
Physical resilienceTop 42% of 4,182 published cities66
AccessTop 45% of 4,226 published cities93
Economic stabilityTop 17% of 4,226 published cities75
The quick read

Powell ranks in the top 20% of published city profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.3% and median household income of $82,434.

Rent takes 19% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.6 times that income.

A major airport is 16 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
13,739
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$82,434
Top 31% nationally
Density
1,609/sq mi
8.5 sq mi of land
Median age
37.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Knox County
Tennessee
Metro area
Knoxville, TN
Nearest major airport
TYS
16 mi · Mc Ghee Tyson
Median home value
$299,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.3% is lower than 89% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 1.3% over the past year, to 253,182 employed residents.

31% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 70% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$8,511$82,434Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$4,849$37,289Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.1%Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.0 minBottom 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher30.6%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment253,182Top 25%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.0%Top 14%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.3%Bottom 39%June 2026
Labor force261,843Top 26%June 2026
Labor force participation66.8%Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$59,890Bottom 14%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$47,080Bottom 17%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.2%Bottom 35%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.3%Bottom 11%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202485k74k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $82,434 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 — Knoxville, TN
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers12,730$27,720
Retail Salespersons12,430$31,150
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand10,120$37,400
Registered Nurses9,500$77,240
General and Operations Managers8,660$104,590
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers8,130$59,100

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 publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Knox County, TN, which contains this city.

27% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 29% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

Public schools
5
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
Math proficiency
26.8%
Bottom 12% in Tennessee
Reading proficiency
28.7%
Bottom 33% in Tennessee
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Powell High SchoolKnox County1,253
Powell ElementaryKnox County85232%27%
Powell Middle SchoolKnox County81022%27%
Copper Ridge ElementaryKnox County48134%40%
Claxton ElementaryAnderson County45618%24%

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 $1,276 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.6 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
18.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,276
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$299,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.63Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate78.9%Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4445,283Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$268$1,276Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$22,978$299,400Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income18.6%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate5.4%Bottom 30%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 →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 89°F and January a low of 30°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 55.5 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 48, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station OAK RIDGE ASOS, 11.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index64.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation55.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low30°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high89°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index48.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing40°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
48
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
64
90th percentile index
Days above 100
1
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

66 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, lightning and winter weather.

LandslideModerate
EarthquakeElevated
LightningModerate
Winter weatherModerate

Low or minimal exposure: tornado, cold wave, inland flooding, ice storm, strong wind, heat wave, hurricane, hail, wildfire, drought.

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.

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.

Knox County records 2.6 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 15.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 45.9 per 100,000 residents in Knox County.

Homicide
2.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
15.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
45.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
19.4
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 Knox 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 Powell rather than Powell 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 16 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Mc Ghee TysonTYS16 mi10,000 ft
Asheville RgnlAVL93 mi8,002 ft
Tri-CitiesTRI95 mi8,000 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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Other cities in Knoxville, TN

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
KnoxvilleKnox County195,18566vs Powell
Oak RidgeAnderson County32,69370vs Powell
MaryvilleBlount County32,39274vs Powell
FarragutKnox County24,63479vs Powell
AlcoaBlount County12,22270vs Powell
Lenoir CityLoudon County11,11069vs Powell
HallsKnox County10,272vs Powell
ClintonAnderson County10,23967vs Powell

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

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)
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.

ZIP codes in Powell

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
3784929,375$84,275