Cheat Lake, West Virginia

Area Profile

10,902 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Cheat Lake, in Monongalia County.

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
OpportunityTop 17% of 3,904 published cities73
SchoolsTop 12% of 2,668 published cities81
Housing affordabilityTop 12% of 4,223 published cities98
Climate2247th of 4,223 published cities70
Physical resilience2385th of 4,182 published cities50
Access3694th of 4,226 published cities70
Economic stabilityTop 22% of 4,226 published cities73
The quick read

Cheat Lake ranks in the top 17% of published city profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.9% and median household income of $117,014.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 12% of median household income and the median home is 3.1 times it.

A typical July reaches 84°F and a typical January falls to 24°F, on thirty-year normals.

At a glance

Population
10,902
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$117,014
Top 12% nationally
Density
760/sq mi
14.3 sq mi of land
Median age
40.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Monongalia County
West Virginia
Metro area
Morgantown, WV
Nearest major airport
LBE
48 mi · Arnold Palmer Rgnl
Median home value
$367,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 66% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment grew 1.3% over the past year, to 54,633 employed residents.

62% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 94% of measured US cities.

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

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$19,407$117,014Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$6,910$67,787Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate6.5%Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute25.6 minBottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher61.8%Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment54,633Top 48%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.4%Bottom 26%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.3%Top 10%June 2026
Labor force56,840Top 48%June 2026
Labor force participation71.1%Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$61,310Bottom 20%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$47,350Bottom 18%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.3%Top 40%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 34%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024117k100k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $117,014 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 — Morgantown, WV
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Registered Nurses4,510$80,130
Retail Salespersons2,090$28,570
Health Specialties Teachers, Postsecondary1,400$60,300
Cashiers1,370$27,370
Nursing Assistants1,310$35,880
General and Operations Managers1,280$89,440

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 Monongalia County, WV, which contains this city.

54% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 55% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.7 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
5
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
53.8%
Top 8% in West Virginia
Reading proficiency
55.3%
Top 15% in West Virginia
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
University High SchoolMonongalia County Schools1,37115.9
Cheat Lake Elementary SchoolMonongalia County Schools75416.462%62%
Mountainview Elementary SchoolMonongalia County Schools64513.744%44%
Brookhaven Elementary SchoolMonongalia County Schools55015.349%57%
Ridgedale Elementary SchoolMonongalia County Schools53617.358%59%

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 West 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 $1,124 takes 12% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.1 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
11.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.1×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,124
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$367,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.14Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate83.2%Top 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3714,758Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$247$1,124Top 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$24,716$367,600Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income11.5%Bottom 8%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.0%Bottom 38%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

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 84°F and January a low of 24°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 43.2 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 43, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MORGANTOWN HART FLD, 3.9 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index56.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation43.2"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low24°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high84°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index43.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing42°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
43
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
56
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

50 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding and lightning.

Inland floodingElevated
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, hail, hurricane, strong wind, ice storm, avalanche, tornado, winter weather, earthquake, heat wave, wildfire, cold wave, drought.

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.

Monongalia County records 1.9 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 12.1 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 20.4 per 100,000 residents in Monongalia County.

Homicide
1.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
12.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
20.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
16.7
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 Monongalia 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 Cheat Lake rather than Cheat Lake 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 48 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Arnold Palmer RgnlLBE48 mi8,222 ft
Pittsburgh IntlPIT61 mi11,500 ft
Youngstown/Warren RgnlYNG119 mi9,003 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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Other cities in Morgantown, WV

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
MorgantownMonongalia County30,23656vs Cheat Lake

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)
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
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.

ZIP codes in Cheat Lake

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
2650840,231$90,041