Franklin County, WA

County Profile

98,902 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Franklin County, WA.

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.

61out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 48% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 32% of 1,255 counties64
GrowthTop 8% of 1,226 counties75
Housing affordability878th of 1,255 counties85
Climate803rd of 1,254 counties63
Physical resilience1146th of 1,255 counties22
Access916th of 1,255 counties69
Economic stabilityTop 30% of 1,255 counties75
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.4% and median household income $86,714, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

872 housing units were authorized over the past twelve months, within 11% of the prior year — steady rather than turning.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, heat wave and cold wave.

At a glance

Population
98,902
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$86,714
Top 12% nationally
Density
80/sq mi
1241.6 sq mi of land
Median age
30.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Franklin County
Washington
Metro area
Kennewick-Richland, WA
Nearest major airport
MWH
50 mi · Grant County Intl
Median home value
$379,300
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.4% is lower than 42% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Unemployment has been falling for 4 consecutive months, most recently 4.4%.

Employment grew 0.1% over the past year, to 46,575 employed residents.

Household income is higher than at least 88% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,594$86,714Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,548$33,959Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate13.1%Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.2 minBottom 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher21.1%Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment46,575Top 47%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)5.3%Top 8%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.1%Top 31%June 2026
Labor force48,722Top 47%June 2026
Labor force participation65.8%Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.4%Top 30%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.4%Top 42%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.93.5
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.4% 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
202120222023202487k72k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $86,714 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 — Kennewick-Richland, WA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides4,800$47,810
Fast Food and Counter Workers4,120$36,410
Retail Salespersons3,580$37,600
Registered Nurses2,560$106,410
Stockers and Order Fillers2,540$38,940
Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse2,470$42,340

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.

There are 17.4 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
39
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
17.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Chiawana Senior High SchoolPasco School District3,12720.7
Pasco Senior High SchoolPasco School District2,59020.4
Ray Reynolds Middle SchoolPasco School District1,29420.5
Mcloughlin Middle SchoolPasco School District1,17121.7
Stevens Middle SchoolPasco School District95618.7
Ellen Ochoa Middle SchoolPasco School District83119.3
Three Rivers ElementaryPasco School District65716.0
Columbia River ElementaryPasco School District61815.8
Connell High SchoolNorth Franklin School District61519.8
Maya Angelou ElementaryPasco School District57914.5
Mark Twain ElementaryPasco School District57916.1
Barbara McClintock STEM ElementaryPasco School District57014.6

69.8% 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 Washington’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 $1,198 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 4.4 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
16.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
4.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,198
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$379,300
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income4.37Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate71.0%Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±36631,183Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$67$1,198Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$9,109$379,300Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.6%Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate4.1%Bottom 2%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
75/ 100
Top 8% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2020 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 4% since 2020, reaching 101,238 in 2024.

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

At 8.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
872
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
8.8
Top 11% nationally
Year over year
+11%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
57.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024101k97k
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
202020212022202320242025981620
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+24%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 93°F and January a low of 28°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 7.6 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 20, 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 PASCO TRI CITIES AP, 21.3 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index50.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation7.6"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low28°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high93°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index20.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing41°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
20
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
50
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

22 / 100
Physical resilience

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

Heat waveHigh
WildfireModerate
Inland floodingHigh
EarthquakeElevated
Cold waveModerate
LandslideModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: ice storm, volcanic activity, lightning, winter weather, hail, strong wind, drought, tornado.

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.

Franklin County records 4.3 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 10.1 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 27.3 per 100,000 residents in Franklin County.

Homicide
4.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
10.1
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
27.3
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
14.0
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 Franklin 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 Franklin County rather than Franklin 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 50 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Grant County IntlMWH50 mi13,503 ft
Spokane IntlGEG99 mi8,199 ft
Seattle-Tacoma IntlSEA173 mi11,901 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
61
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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
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 Franklin County, WA