Dunn County, WI

County Profile

45,527 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Dunn County, WI.

Several figures AreaProfile publishes are measured by county and nowhere finer — death rates by intent among them. On this page those describe the geography they are printed on, which is not true of the city and ZIP pages that inherit them.

71out of 100
Area Score
Top 19% of 1,225 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 7% of 1,255 counties measured82
SchoolsTop 43% of 973 counties measured57
Growth795th of 1,226 counties measured42
Housing affordabilityTop 35% of 1,255 counties measured97
Climate1184th of 1,254 counties measured53
Physical resilienceTop 29% of 1,255 counties measured75
AccessTop 25% of 1,255 counties measured91
Economic stabilityTop 23% of 1,255 counties measured80
The quick read

Dunn County ranks in the top 7% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.4% and median household income of $74,824.

In the public schools here, 42% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 14.2 students for every teacher.

Residential permitting has slowed: 102 units authorized over the past twelve months, 24% below the prior year.

At a glance

Population
45,527
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$74,824
Top 26% nationally
Density
54/sq mi
850.2 sq mi of land
Median age
36.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Dunn County
Wisconsin
Metro area
Menomonie, WI
Nearest major airport
EAU
21 mi · Chippewa Valley Rgnl
Median home value
$243,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.4% is lower than 83% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 2.4% over the past year, to 23,826 employed residents.

30% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 75% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$2,670$74,824Top 26%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,160$37,499Top 37%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate10.7%Bottom 29%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.6 minBottom 42%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher29.6%Top 25%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Employment23,826Bottom 30%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (3 years)2.9%Top 21%of 1,255June 2026
Employment change (year over year)2.4%Top 4%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force24,652Bottom 30%of 1,255June 2026
Labor force participation67.3%Top 9%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.1%Top 46%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate3.4%Bottom 17%of 1,255June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/064.72.3
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.4% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202475k64k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $74,824 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.

42% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 37% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 14.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
17
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
14.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
42.4%
Top 31% in Wisconsin
Reading proficiency
36.7%
Bottom 38% in Wisconsin
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Menomonie HighMenomonie Area School District96615.6
Menomonie MiddleMenomonie Area School District73014.937%37%
Mound View ElementaryElk Mound Area School District45613.852%39%
River Heights ElementaryMenomonie Area School District40312.633%26%
Colfax ElementaryColfax School District39813.351%47%
Oaklawn ElementaryMenomonie Area School District38213.644%38%
Elk Mound MiddleElk Mound Area School District36814.752%37%
Wakanda ElementaryMenomonie Area School District35113.047%42%
Elk Mound HighElk Mound Area School District34813.4
Tiffany Creek ElementaryBoyceville Community School District32714.247%40%
Colfax HighColfax School District31813.332%27%
Boyceville HighBoyceville Community School District21114.1

38.4% 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 Wisconsin’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 $985 takes 16% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.3 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
15.8%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$985
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$243,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income3.25Top 39%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate67.0%Bottom 20%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±8818,983Top 37%of 3,2222024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$49$985Top 33%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$6,794$243,200Top 29%of 3,2192024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income15.8%Bottom 36%of 3,2162024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.1%Bottom 19%of 3,2222024 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
42/ 100
Ranks 795 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2022 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 2% since 2020, reaching 46,135 in 2024.

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

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

At 2.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
102
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.2
Bottom 39% nationally
Year over year
−24%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202446k45k
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
202220232024202515199
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−18%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 83°F and January a low of 6°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 33.0 inches, including 55.4 inches of snow.

-10°10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station EAU CLAIRE RGNL AP, 20.8 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation33.0"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall55.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low6°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high83°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing57°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

75 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are tornado, strong wind and hail.

Strong windElevated
HailElevated
TornadoModerate
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, cold wave, heat wave, inland flooding, winter weather, ice storm, drought, wildfire, earthquake.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA National Risk Index county record. 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.

Dunn County records 0.0 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 9.2 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 8.4 per 100,000 residents in Dunn County.

Homicide
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
9.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
8.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
24.0
per 100,000 residents

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 Dunn 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 Dunn County rather than Dunn County 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
Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.
Taxes and full cost of living
No public source publishes either with national coverage and a method open enough to check. 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. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 21 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Chippewa Valley RgnlEAU21 mi8,101 ft
Minneapolis-St Paul Intl/Wold-ChamberlainMSP65 mi11,006 ft
Rochester IntlRST78 mi9,034 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.

Customize your score

What matters to you?

Choose what you weight most heavily. Nothing is saved to an account — your preferences stay in this browser, and the Area Score never changes.

Area Score
71
Your Score

Select one or more priorities to see how this location scores against them.

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
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

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.

Cities in Dunn County, WI