Milwaukee County, WI

County Profile

926,331 residents. Safety, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Milwaukee 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.

58out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 34% of 1,225 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 49% of 1,255 counties56
Schools950th of 973 counties8
Growth1153rd of 1,226 counties21
Housing affordability801st of 1,255 counties88
Climate924th of 1,254 counties61
Physical resilienceTop 1% of 1,255 counties98
Access998th of 1,255 counties64
Economic stability665th of 1,255 counties60
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.3% and median household income $64,435, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published profiles.

Residential permitting has slowed: 758 units authorized over the past twelve months, 45% below the prior year.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published profiles, placing Milwaukee County in the top 1% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
926,331
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$64,435
Bottom 48% nationally
Density
3,836/sq mi
241.5 sq mi of land
Median age
35.5
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Milwaukee County
Wisconsin
Metro area
Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI
Nearest major airport
ORD
65 mi · Chicago O'Hare Intl
Median home value
$230,700
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.3% is lower than 46% of the 1,255 measured US locations.

Employment grew 0.4% over the past year, to 439,646 employed residents.

35% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 85% of measured US locations.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$1,218$64,435Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$466$38,385Top 32%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate17.2%Top 28%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute23.8 minBottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher34.7%Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment439,646Top 5%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-1.0%Bottom 32%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)0.4%Top 25%June 2026
Labor force459,359Top 5%June 2026
Labor force participation65.1%Top 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.0%Bottom 45%June 2026
Unemployment rate4.3%Top 46%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.62.5
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.3% 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
202120222023202464k55k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $64,435 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 — Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides30,090$37,020
Registered Nurses22,400$97,360
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand19,810$44,840
Retail Salespersons18,850$34,410
Fast Food and Counter Workers17,490$28,440
Cashiers15,050$30,400

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.

24% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 27% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.9 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
274
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.9
across all schools here
Math proficiency
24.3%
Bottom 1% in Wisconsin
Reading proficiency
27.5%
Bottom 3% in Wisconsin
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Oak Creek HighOak Creek-Franklin Joint School District2,22017.8
HAPA-Hmong American Peace Academy K3-12 · charterMilwaukee School District1,97426.318%24%
Milwaukee Academy of Science · charterMilwaukee Science Education Consortium Inc1,71117.65%5%
Franklin HighFranklin Public School District1,60516.5
Hamilton HighMilwaukee School District1,47214.9
Reagan College Preparatory HighMilwaukee School District1,37221.1
Bruce Guadalupe · charterUnited Community Center Inc1,36413.8
King InternationalMilwaukee School District1,30818.2
Obama School of Career and Technical EducationMilwaukee School District1,29430.1
Riverside HighMilwaukee School District1,24017.7
Golda Meir SchoolMilwaukee School District1,19218.933%42%
Greenfield HighGreenfield School District1,14014.3

64.1% 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 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 $1,101 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.6 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
20.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,101
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$230,700
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.58Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate49.9%Bottom 1%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±391426,715Top 2%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$8$1,101Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$2,063$230,700Top 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.5%Top 18%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.0%Bottom 19%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
21/ 100
Ranks 1153 of 1,226 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2020 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 fallen 1% since 2020, reaching 924,740 in 2024.

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

79% 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 0.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US locations.

Units permitted
758
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.8
Bottom 12% nationally
Year over year
−45%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
79.2%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024939k922k
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
2020202120222023202420251k410
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+25%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 82°F and January a low of 17°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 34.6 inches, including 48.7 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 43, in the Good band, and about 6 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MILWAUKEE MITCHELL AP, 3.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.4"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index65.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation34.6"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall48.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low17°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10062024 calendar year
Median air quality index43.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing49°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
43
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
65
90th percentile index
Days above 100
6
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

98 / 100
Physical resilience

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

LightningModerate

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

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.

Milwaukee County records 18.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 24.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 35.6 per 100,000 residents in Milwaukee County.

Homicide
18.6
per 100,000 residents
Firearm deaths, all intents
24.3
per 100,000 residents
Drug overdose
35.6
per 100,000 residents
Suicide
13.8
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 Milwaukee 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 Milwaukee County rather than Milwaukee 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

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 65 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Chicago O'Hare IntlORD65 mi11,245 ft
Dane County Rgnl/Truax FldMSN76 mi9,006 ft
Wittman RgnlOSH82 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
58
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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.