98036Lynnwood, Washington

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 98036.

52out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 23% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3861st of 6,210 published ZIP areas49
Growth3810th of 5,428 published ZIP areas38
Housing affordability6161st of 6,685 published ZIP areas44
ClimateTop 36% of 6,789 published ZIP areas74
Physical resilience4392nd of 6,709 published ZIP areas45
Access4347th of 6,791 published ZIP areas89
Economic stabilityTop 39% of 6,742 published ZIP areas65
The quick read

Residential permitting has slowed: 80 units authorized over the past twelve months, 85% below the prior year.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 8.5 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 24% of it.

A major airport is 19 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
42,370
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$88,958
Top 28% nationally
Density
4,418/sq mi
9.6 sq mi of land
Median age
39.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Lynnwood
Washington
Metro area
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
Nearest major airport
BFI
19 mi · Boeing Fld/King County Intl
Median home value
$759,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.9% is lower than 31% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 1.5% over the past year, to 20,540 employed residents.

40% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 80% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,078$88,958Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,329$48,844Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate8.9%Bottom 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute33.2 minTop 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher40.4%Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment20,540Bottom 20%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.5%Bottom 43%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.5%Bottom 34%June 2026
Labor force21,609Bottom 20%June 2026
Labor force participation63.9%Top 37%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)0.1%Top 45%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.9%Top 31%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202491k85k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $88,958 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 Lynnwood, WA, the city containing this ZIP code.

There are 17.6 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
12
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
17.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Brier Terrace Middle SchoolEdmonds School District64921.6
Hilltop ElementaryEdmonds School District56217.0
Oak Heights ElementaryEdmonds School District52615.0
College Place Middle SchoolEdmonds School District47920.8
College Place ElementaryEdmonds School District47314.3
Cedar Valley ElementaryEdmonds School District42713.3
Hazelwood ElementaryEdmonds School District41914.4
Early Childhood CenterEdmonds School District39744.1
Brier ElementaryEdmonds School District38917.7
Edmonds Career Access ProgramEdmonds School District383
Contracted SchoolsEdmonds School District18
Unassigned SchoolEdmonds School District0

46.1% 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 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 $1,779 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 8.5 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
24.0%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
8.5×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,779
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$759,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income8.54Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate59.7%Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±76017,372Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$71$1,779Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$23,971$759,900Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income24.0%Top 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate4.6%Bottom 21%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
38/ 100
Ranks 3810 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.

75% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 2.0 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
80
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.0
Bottom 40% nationally
Year over year
−85%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
75.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Lynnwood, WA, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 72°F and January a low of 37°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 33.4 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 38, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

30°50°70°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station EVERETT SNOHOMISH AP, 6.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.0"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index59.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation33.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low37°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high72°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index38.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing24°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
38
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
59
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

45 / 100
Physical resilience

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

EarthquakeHigh
Heat waveModerate
Volcanic activityModerate
AvalancheModerate

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

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.

Snohomish County records 1.5 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 10.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 27.9 per 100,000 residents in Snohomish County.

Homicide
1.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
10.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
27.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
18.0
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 Snohomish 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 98036 rather than 98036 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 19 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Boeing Fld/King County IntlBFI19 mi10,007 ft
Seattle-Tacoma IntlSEA25 mi11,901 ft
Grant County IntlMWH144 mi13,503 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
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.

98036 vs Lynnwood

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

98036
Lynnwood
Median household income
$88,958
vs
$77,704
Per capita income
$48,844
vs
$42,390
Population density
4,418/sq mi
vs
5,092/sq mi
Median home value
$759,900
vs
$686,900
Median gross rent
$1,779
vs
$1,742
Homeownership rate
59.7%
vs
51.1%
Bachelor's degree or higher
40.4%
vs
34.9%
Poverty rate
8.9%
vs
14.2%
Median age
39.6
vs
37.5

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.