Middleton, Wisconsin

Area Profile

22,301 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Middleton, in Dane County.

79out of 100
Area Score
Top 3% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 8% of 3,904 published cities80
SchoolsTop 8% of 2,668 published cities84
GrowthTop 15% of 2,973 published cities71
Housing affordability2662nd of 4,223 published cities72
Climate3845th of 4,223 published cities57
Physical resilienceTop 2% of 4,182 published cities97
AccessTop 29% of 4,226 published cities97
Economic stabilityTop 25% of 4,226 published cities72
The quick read

Middleton ranks in the top 8% of published city profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.0% and median household income of $89,524.

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

A major airport is 9 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
22,301
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$89,524
Top 25% nationally
Density
2,372/sq mi
9.4 sq mi of land
Median age
39.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Dane County
Wisconsin
Metro area
Madison, WI
Nearest major airport
MSN
9 mi · Dane County Rgnl/Truax Fld
Median home value
$484,200
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.0% is lower than 96% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.3% over the past year, to 331,978 employed residents.

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

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$7,629$89,524Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,914$59,443Top 10%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate7.6%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute21.0 minBottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher61.7%Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment331,978Top 21%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)0.6%Top 41%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.3%Top 35%June 2026
Labor force342,216Top 21%June 2026
Labor force participation68.1%Top 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$70,990Top 42%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$58,080Top 26%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.0%Bottom 4%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202490k79k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $89,524 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 — Madison, WI
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Registered Nurses10,650$101,190
Fast Food and Counter Workers9,180$29,820
Home Health and Personal Care Aides8,360$37,220
Retail Salespersons8,330$35,830
Cashiers7,960$34,550
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand7,130$44,190

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 publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Dane County, WI, which contains this city.

56% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 56% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 13.8 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
13.8
across all schools here
Math proficiency
55.7%
Top 19% in Wisconsin
Reading proficiency
55.6%
Top 5% in Wisconsin
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Middleton HighMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District2,30315.4
Kromrey MiddleMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District1,23012.449%57%
Pope Farm ElementaryMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District44814.073%63%
Sauk Trail ElementaryMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District3609.232%35%
Elm Lawn ElementaryMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District31311.667%62%
Sunset Ridge ElementaryMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District30911.969%59%
Northside ElementaryMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District30712.859%52%
Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District 4KMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District28657.2
Clark Street Community School · charterMiddleton-Cross Plains Area School District10812.0

18.8% 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 $1,437 takes 19% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.4 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
19.3%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,437
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$484,200
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.41Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate45.7%Bottom 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±40810,793Top 6%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$74$1,437Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$20,378$484,200Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.3%Top 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate3.8%Bottom 23%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
71/ 100
Top 15% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, 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 grown 2% since 2020, reaching 22,566 in 2024.

78% 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 19.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
433
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
19.4
Top 4% nationally
Year over year
−11%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
78.1%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202423k22k
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
2020202120222023202420255084.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was close to 2020 (−4%).

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 12°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 37.1 inches, including 51.8 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 42, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station MADISON DANE RGNL AP, 8.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index58.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation37.1"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall51.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low12°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index42.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing52°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
42
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
58
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

97 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HailModerate
TornadoModerate

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

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.

Dane County records 2.3 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 7.8 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 12.0 per 100,000 residents in Dane County.

Homicide
2.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
7.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
12.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
11.6
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 Dane 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 Middleton rather than Middleton 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 9 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Dane County Rgnl/Truax FldMSN9 mi9,006 ft
Wittman RgnlOSH77 mi8,002 ft
Appleton IntlATW94 mi8,003 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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Area Score
79
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Other cities in Madison, WI

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
MadisonDane County278,00172vs Middleton
Sun PrairieDane County37,57075vs Middleton
FitchburgDane County32,61977vs Middleton
WaunakeeDane County15,68784vs Middleton
VeronaDane County15,23280vs Middleton
StoughtonDane County13,033vs Middleton
OregonDane County11,54781vs Middleton
DeForestDane County11,50183vs Middleton
MonroeGreen County10,58772vs Middleton
PortageColumbia County10,23663vs Middleton

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.

Compare

Put Middleton side by side with a similar place.

Middleton vs OregonMiddleton vs MeridianMiddleton vs NorwoodMiddleton vs Broomall

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.

ZIP codes in Middleton

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
5356229,790$101,38180