East Wenatchee, Washington

Area Profile

14,199 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for East Wenatchee, in Douglas County.

53out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 24% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 39% of 3,904 published cities61
GrowthTop 38% of 2,973 published cities57
Housing affordability2875th of 4,223 published cities69
Climate2658th of 4,223 published cities66
Physical resilience4026th of 4,182 published cities9
Access3598th of 4,226 published cities73
Economic stabilityTop 36% of 4,226 published cities67
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.2% and median household income $77,558, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Rent takes 21% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 5.5 times that income.

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

At a glance

Population
14,199
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$77,558
Top 36% nationally
Density
3,747/sq mi
3.8 sq mi of land
Median age
35.4
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Douglas County
Washington
Metro area
Wenatchee-East Wenatchee, WA
Nearest major airport
MWH
47 mi · Grant County Intl
Median home value
$429,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 55% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.3% over the past year, to 20,269 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,245$77,558Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$5,657$40,505Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate8.0%Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute20.7 minBottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher19.8%Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment20,269Bottom 25%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)1.9%Top 23%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.3%Top 34%June 2026
Labor force21,165Bottom 25%June 2026
Labor force participation66.4%Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$64,240Bottom 28%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$49,290Bottom 35%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.4%Top 32%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Bottom 45%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202481k68k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $77,558 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 — Wenatchee-East Wenatchee, WA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers1,690$36,450
Retail Salespersons1,620$37,700
Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse1,610$40,680
Registered Nurses1,330$112,280
Cashiers1,240$36,550
Home Health and Personal Care Aides1,120$47,730

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 Douglas County, WA, which contains this city.

There are 18.6 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
10
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
18.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Eastmont Senior HighEastmont School District1,53422.9
Eastmont Junior HighEastmont School District68719.1
Sterling Junior High SchoolEastmont School District67619.3
Cascade ElementaryEastmont School District56816.2
Grant Elementary SchoolEastmont School District53417.2
Kenroy ElementaryEastmont School District53016.6
Lee ElementaryEastmont School District52216.3
Clovis Point Elementary SchoolEastmont School District51116.5
Eastmont PreschoolsEastmont School District6923.0
Canyon View Group HomeEastmont School District1

58.2% 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 $1,327 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.5 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
20.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,327
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$429,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.53Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate59.0%Bottom 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±2335,577Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$104$1,327Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$18,530$429,200Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.5%Top 38%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 →
Development Momentum
57/ 100
Top 38% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, 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 1% since 2020, reaching 14,330 in 2024.

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

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

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

At 1.7 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
24
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.7
Bottom 42% nationally
Year over year
+41%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202414k14k
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
202020212022202320242025486.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+79%).

Weather & climate

5 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 24°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 7.8 inches.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station WENATCHEE PANGBORN AP, 4.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation7.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low24°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high88°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing46°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

9 / 100
Physical resilience

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

WildfireHigh
Cold waveHigh
Inland floodingHigh
EarthquakeHigh
Heat waveModerate
AvalancheModerate
HailModerate

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

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.

Douglas County records 4.2 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 15.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 26.8 per 100,000 residents in Douglas County.

Homicide
4.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
15.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
26.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
17.4
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 Douglas 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 East Wenatchee rather than East Wenatchee 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 47 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Grant County IntlMWH47 mi13,503 ft
Boeing Fld/King County IntlBFI95 mi10,007 ft
Seattle-Tacoma IntlSEA95 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
53
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Other cities in Wenatchee-East Wenatchee, WA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
WenatcheeChelan County35,48454vs East Wenatchee

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)
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

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 East Wenatchee

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9880233,539$87,74454