25303South Charleston, West Virginia

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 25303.

49out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 14% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity3858th of 6,210 published ZIP areas49
SchoolsTop 39% of 4,422 published ZIP areas60
Growth5270th of 5,428 published ZIP areas13
Housing affordabilityTop 9% of 6,685 published ZIP areas100
ClimateTop 31% of 6,789 published ZIP areas75
Physical resilience5310th of 6,709 published ZIP areas25
Access6763rd of 6,791 published ZIP areas0
Economic stability3790th of 6,742 published ZIP areas56
The quick read

Residential permitting has slowed: 8 units authorized over the past twelve months, 33% below the prior year.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 18% of median household income and the median home is 2.3 times it.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by inland flooding, strong wind and winter weather.

At a glance

Population
7,396
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$75,872
Top 44% nationally
Density
2,069/sq mi
3.6 sq mi of land
Median age
40.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
South Charleston
West Virginia
Metro area
Charleston, WV
Nearest major airport
LCK
121 mi · Rickenbacker Intl
Median home value
$173,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 60% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 1.6% over the past year, to 75,682 employed residents.

46% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 84% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$16,586$75,872Top 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$4,352$40,059Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate11.3%Top 46%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute19.3 minBottom 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher45.9%Top 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment75,682Top 41%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-5.2%Bottom 3%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.6%Bottom 32%June 2026
Labor force79,026Top 41%June 2026
Labor force participation68.7%Top 19%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$58,170Bottom 12%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$45,830Bottom 11%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Bottom 40%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202476k61k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $75,872 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 — Charleston, WV
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Registered Nurses4,320$80,230
Home Health and Personal Care Aides3,200$28,680
Retail Salespersons2,650$29,050
Cooks, Fast Food2,230$23,180
Cashiers2,170$26,280
General and Operations Managers2,160$83,190

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 South Charleston, WV, the city containing this ZIP code.

34% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 48% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 16.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
4
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
16.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
34.4%
Top 43% in West Virginia
Reading proficiency
48.3%
Top 29% in West Virginia
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
South Charleston Middle SchoolKanawha County Schools35417.717%37%
Weberwood Elementary SchoolKanawha County Schools24715.462%57%
Montrose Elementary SchoolKanawha County Schools22414.932%56%
WIN Academy at BVCTC · charterWIN Academy at BVCTC34

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 $1,116 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.3 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
17.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,116
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$173,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.28Bottom 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate70.7%Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3523,926Top 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$92$1,116Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$17,804$173,200Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.7%Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate15.3%Top 37%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
13/ 100
Ranks 5270 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.

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

At 0.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
8
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.6
Bottom 17% nationally
Year over year
−33%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for South Charleston, WV, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 86°F and January a low of 26°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 46.2 inches, including 31.5 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 40, 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 CHARLESTON YEAGER AP, 5.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index57.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation46.2"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall31.5"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low26°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high86°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index40.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing41°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
40
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
57
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

25 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, strong wind and winter weather.

Inland floodingHigh
Strong windModerate
Winter weatherModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, heat wave, lightning, hail, ice storm, earthquake, avalanche, hurricane, wildfire, tornado, 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. 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.

Kanawha County records 4.5 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 19.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 46.3 per 100,000 residents in Kanawha County.

Homicide
4.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
19.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
46.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
18.3
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 Kanawha 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 25303 rather than 25303 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

No airport meeting the AreaProfile major-airport definition lies within 100 miles; the nearest is 121 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Rickenbacker IntlLCK121 mi11,902 ft
John Glenn Columbus IntlCMH130 mi10,114 ft
Wilmington Air ParkILN135 mi10,701 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
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.

25303 vs South Charleston

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

25303
South Charleston
Median household income
$75,872
vs
$63,884
Per capita income
$40,059
vs
$37,767
Population density
2,069/sq mi
vs
1,379/sq mi
Median home value
$173,200
vs
$155,400
Median gross rent
$1,116
vs
$844
Homeownership rate
70.7%
vs
70.6%
Bachelor's degree or higher
45.9%
vs
37.8%
Poverty rate
11.3%
vs
16.9%
Median age
40.9
vs
41.7

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.