Manitowoc County, WI

County Profile

81,406 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Manitowoc 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.

70out of 100
Area Score
Top 21% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 19% of 1,255 counties71
Schools756th of 973 counties28
GrowthTop 33% of 1,226 counties59
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 1,255 counties100
Climate1169th of 1,254 counties54
Physical resilienceTop 2% of 1,255 counties96
Access655th of 1,255 counties81
Economic stabilityTop 29% of 1,255 counties75
The quick read

Manitowoc County ranks in the top 19% of published profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.3% and median household income of $69,148.

In the public schools here, 33% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 12.7 students for every teacher.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published profiles, placing Manitowoc County in the top 2% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
81,406
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$69,148
Top 39% nationally
Density
138/sq mi
589.3 sq mi of land
Median age
45.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Manitowoc County
Wisconsin
Metro area
Manitowoc, WI
Nearest major airport
GRB
36 mi · Green Bay/Austin Straubel Intl
Median home value
$186,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.3% is lower than 86% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 1.3% over the past year, to 42,352 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$2,433$69,148Top 39%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$980$38,222Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate9.6%Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.3 minBottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher22.6%Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment42,352Top 50%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.6%Top 45%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.3%Top 12%June 2026
Labor force43,784Top 50%June 2026
Labor force participation61.9%Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 42%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.3%Bottom 14%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/063.92.2
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.3% 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
202120222023202469k61k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $69,148 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.

33% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 33% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 12.7 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
27
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
12.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
32.8%
Bottom 13% in Wisconsin
Reading proficiency
33.1%
Bottom 16% in Wisconsin
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Lincoln HighManitowoc School District1,38514.4
Washington MiddleManitowoc School District56612.612%22%
Wilson MiddleManitowoc School District47811.922%32%
Two Rivers HighTwo Rivers Public School District47112.7
Schultz ElementaryMishicot School District45516.341%46%
Zielanis ElementaryKiel Area School District41213.354%42%
Valders ElementaryValders Area School District41119.650%41%
Clarke MiddleTwo Rivers Public School District3979.714%25%
Kiel HighKiel Area School District37515.0
Franklin ElementaryManitowoc School District35610.821%26%
Jefferson ElementaryManitowoc School District34410.417%19%
Kiel MiddleKiel Area School District33813.562%43%

40.6% 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 $797 takes 14% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.7 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
13.8%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
2.7×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$797
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$186,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.70Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate77.1%Top 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±7338,084Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$27$797Bottom 34%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$6,425$186,900Top 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income13.8%Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.6%Bottom 17%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
59/ 100
Top 33% of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, 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 been broadly flat since 2020, at 81,513 in 2024.

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

At 2.5 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
206
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.5
Bottom 44% nationally
Year over year
+89%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
38.3%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202482k81k
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
2022202320242025142100
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+42%).

Weather & climate

4 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 12°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 32.0 inches, including 46.1 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 39, in the Good band, and about 11 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station TWO RIVERS, 1.0 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index64.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation32.0"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall46.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low12°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high76°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months41991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100112024 calendar year
Median air quality index39.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing48°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
39
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
64
90th percentile index
Days above 100
11
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

96 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HailModerate
Cold waveModerate
Heat waveModerate
TornadoModerate
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: inland flooding, winter weather, strong wind, landslide, coastal flooding, ice storm, earthquake, hurricane, wildfire.

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.

Manitowoc 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 13.5 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 Manitowoc County.

Homicide
1.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
13.5
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
8.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
23.4
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 Manitowoc 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 Manitowoc County rather than Manitowoc 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
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

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 36 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Green Bay/Austin Straubel IntlGRB36 mi8,700 ft
Appleton IntlATW47 mi8,003 ft
Wittman RgnlOSH50 mi8,002 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
70
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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
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.