23608Newport News, Virginia

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 23608.

57out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 38% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity4825th of 6,210 published ZIP areas41
Schools3582nd of 4,422 published ZIP areas27
Growth5294th of 5,428 published ZIP areas11
Housing affordabilityTop 44% of 6,685 published ZIP areas84
ClimateTop 21% of 6,789 published ZIP areas78
Physical resilienceTop 17% of 6,709 published ZIP areas84
AccessTop 43% of 6,791 published ZIP areas95
Economic stabilityTop 45% of 6,742 published ZIP areas63
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 4.3% and the Opportunity signal places 23608 in the bottom 22%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 86 units authorized over the past twelve months, 84% below the prior year.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published ZIP profiles, placing 23608 in the top 17% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
43,641
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$71,126
Bottom 49% nationally
Density
4,060/sq mi
10.7 sq mi of land
Median age
34.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Newport News
Virginia
Metro area
Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC
Nearest major airport
PHF
3 mi · Newport News/Williamsburg Intl
Median home value
$266,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.3% is lower than 56% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 2.0% over the past year, to 84,065 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,874$71,126Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,878$35,742Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.5%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute29.7 minTop 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher29.0%Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment84,065Top 39%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-3.7%Bottom 8%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.0%Bottom 19%June 2026
Labor force87,845Top 39%June 2026
Labor force participation70.4%Top 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$64,130Bottom 32%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$49,430Bottom 42%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.3%Top 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.3%Bottom 44%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202471k63k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $71,126 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 — Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers22,520$28,780
Retail Salespersons20,890$30,820
General and Operations Managers17,400$100,340
Registered Nurses16,870$89,450
Cashiers16,840$29,320
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand13,920$39,160

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 does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Newport News, VA, the city containing this ZIP code.

35% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 51% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
13
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
35.1%
Bottom 22% in Virginia
Reading proficiency
51.3%
Bottom 25% in Virginia
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Woodside HighNewport News City Public Schools1,72315.1
Denbigh HighNewport News City Public Schools1,26914.4
Ella J. Fitzgerald MiddleNewport News City Public Schools98850%61%
Mary Passage MiddleNewport News City Public Schools93142%52%
Oliver C. Greenwood ElementaryNewport News City Public Schools54917.722%49%
Richneck ElementaryNewport News City Public Schools50219.335%54%
Knollwood Meadows ElementaryNewport News City Public Schools46020.049%67%
Stoney Run ElementaryNewport News City Public Schools45317.413%28%
George J. McIntosh ElementaryNewport News City Public Schools44617.816%34%
Denbigh Early Childhood CenterNewport News City Public Schools39715.3
David A. Dutrow ElementaryNewport News City Public Schools34117.130%52%
Newport AcademyNew Horizons Regional Education Center - Special Education0

98.1% 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 Virginia’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 $1,265 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.7 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
21.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,265
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$266,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.75Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate49.6%Bottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±59818,891Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$71$1,265Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$8,022$266,500Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income21.3%Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate5.2%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
11/ 100
Ranks 5294 of 5,428 published city profiles

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.

At 0.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
86
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.5
Bottom 15% nationally
Year over year
−84%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
37.2%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Newport News, VA, the city containing this ZIP code.

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 31°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 45.1 inches.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station NEWPORT NEWS INTL AP, 3.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation45.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low31°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high88°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing39°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

84 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HurricaneElevated
Ice stormModerate
Coastal floodingModerate

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

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. ZIP values are the land-area-weighted mean of the counties the ZIP Code Tabulation Area intersects. Expected annual loss is not allocated below county level. 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.

Newport News city records 8.2 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 14.7 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.4 per 100,000 residents in Newport News city.

Homicide
8.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
14.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
16.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
10.4
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 Newport News city 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 23608 rather than 23608 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 3 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Newport News/Williamsburg IntlPHF3 mi8,003 ft
Richmond IntlRIC49 mi9,003 ft
Washington Dulles IntlIAD134 mi11,500 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
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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
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
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.

23608 vs Newport News

How this ZIP area compares with Newport News as a whole. Both figures come from the same ACS release, so the comparison is like for like.

23608
Newport News
Median household income
$71,126
vs
$69,634
Per capita income
$35,742
vs
$38,773
Population density
4,060/sq mi
vs
2,670/sq mi
Median home value
$266,500
vs
$260,600
Median gross rent
$1,265
vs
$1,339
Homeownership rate
49.6%
vs
48.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher
29.0%
vs
30.6%
Poverty rate
14.5%
vs
14.5%
Median age
34.1
vs
34.4

Some demographic statistics use Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, which approximate but do not exactly match USPS ZIP delivery geography. See the methodology for how AreaProfile maps between them.