98433Fort Lewis, Washington

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 98433.

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
Opportunity5382nd of 6,210 published ZIP areas35
Housing affordability6676th of 6,685 published ZIP areas0
ClimateTop 36% of 6,789 published ZIP areas74
Physical resilience4991st of 6,709 published ZIP areas32
Access5081st of 6,791 published ZIP areas83
Economic stabilityTop 44% of 6,742 published ZIP areas63
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 5.4% and the Opportunity signal places 98433 in the bottom 13%.

Rent takes 46% of median household income here, at or above the threshold conventionally called cost-burdened.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, heat wave and avalanche.

At a glance

Population
22,493
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$60,158
Bottom 30% nationally
Density
671/sq mi
33.5 sq mi of land
Median age
23.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Fort Lewis
Washington
Metro area
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
Nearest major airport
SEA
28 mi · Seattle-Tacoma Intl
Median home value

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 5.4% is lower than 16% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 1.3% over the past year, to 460,720 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,449$60,158Bottom 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,467$25,582Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate13.0%Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute12.3 minBottom 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher25.4%Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment460,720Top 12%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.1%Top 48%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.3%Bottom 39%June 2026
Labor force486,790Top 12%June 2026
Labor force participation83.4%Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$91,790Top 6%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$72,610Top 4%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.4%Top 34%June 2026
Unemployment rate5.4%Top 16%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202460k49k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $60,158 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 — Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Software Developers92,770$167,280
Home Health and Personal Care Aides54,670$48,210
Fast Food and Counter Workers49,190$39,150
Retail Salespersons46,620$42,080
Registered Nurses39,900$128,260
Business Operations Specialists, All Other38,800$101,920

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 Fort Lewis, WA, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 15.4 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
5
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.4
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Rainier Elementary SchoolClover Park School District57615.6
Hillside Elementary SchoolClover Park School District56716.2
Evergreen Elementary SchoolClover Park School District44213.8
Beachwood Elementary SchoolClover Park School District39716.5
Meriwether Elementary SchoolClover Park School District24015.0

54.0% 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 $2,312 takes 46% of median household income, above the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

Rent as a share of income
46.1%
Above the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,312
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Homeownership rate0.9%Bottom 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3744,915Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$25$2,312Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income46.1%Top 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate10.5%Bottom 48%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

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 76°F and January a low of 36°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 42.0 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 44, in the Good band, and one day a year passes 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station TACOMA NARROWS AP, 12.2 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND7.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index59.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation42.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low36°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high76°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10012024 calendar year
Median air quality index44.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing24°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
44
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
59
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

32 / 100
Physical resilience

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

EarthquakeHigh
Volcanic activityModerate
AvalancheModerate
Heat waveModerate
LandslideModerate

Low or minimal exposure: inland flooding, cold wave, lightning, winter weather, ice storm, wildfire, coastal flooding, tsunami, strong wind, tornado, hail, drought.

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.

Pierce County records 5.0 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 14.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 37.6 per 100,000 residents in Pierce County.

Homicide
5.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
14.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
37.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.9
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 Pierce 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 98433 rather than 98433 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 28 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Seattle-Tacoma IntlSEA28 mi11,901 ft
Boeing Fld/King County IntlBFI33 mi10,007 ft
Portland IntlPDX104 mi11,000 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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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
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.

98433 vs Fort Lewis

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

98433
Fort Lewis
Median household income
$60,158
vs
$58,796
Per capita income
$25,582
vs
$24,633
Population density
671/sq mi
vs
1,474/sq mi
Median gross rent
$2,312
vs
$2,282
Homeownership rate
0.9%
vs
1.0%
Bachelor's degree or higher
25.4%
vs
24.4%
Poverty rate
13.0%
vs
13.2%
Median age
23.0
vs
22.9

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.