54481Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 54481.

66out of 100
Area Score
Top 29% of 5,298 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 14% of 6,210 published ZIP areas75
Schools2464th of 4,422 published ZIP areas47
Growth3598th of 5,428 published ZIP areas40
Housing affordabilityTop 19% of 6,685 published ZIP areas96
Climate6520th of 6,789 published ZIP areas54
Physical resilienceTop 28% of 6,709 published ZIP areas76
Access6055th of 6,791 published ZIP areas68
Economic stability3630th of 6,742 published ZIP areas58
The quick read

54481 ranks in the top 14% of published ZIP profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.2% and median household income of $59,545.

Residential permitting has slowed: 40 units authorized over the past twelve months, 49% 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 3.4 times it.

At a glance

Population
28,242
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$59,545
Bottom 29% nationally
Density
431/sq mi
65.6 sq mi of land
Median age
30.1
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Stevens Point
Wisconsin
Metro area
Stevens Point-Plover, WI
Nearest major airport
ATW
59 mi · Appleton Intl
Median home value
$201,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.2% is lower than 93% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 1.4% over the past year, to 14,970 employed residents.

36% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 75% of measured US ZIP areas.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,320$59,545Bottom 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,355$33,955Bottom 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate15.6%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute18.3 minBottom 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher36.4%Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment14,970Bottom 10%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)2.0%Top 25%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)1.4%Top 8%June 2026
Labor force15,468Bottom 10%June 2026
Labor force participation69.3%Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)0.2%Top 43%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.2%Bottom 7%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202460k52k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $59,545 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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Stevens Point, WI, the city containing this ZIP code.

33% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 38% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.7 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
12
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.7
across all schools here
Math proficiency
32.7%
Bottom 39% in Wisconsin
Reading proficiency
38.2%
Top 43% in Wisconsin
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Stevens Point Area Senior HighStevens Point Area Public School District1,47818.2
Benjamin Franklin Junior HighStevens Point Area Public School District75713.822%37%
P J Jacobs Junior HighStevens Point Area Public School District70913.922%37%
Washington ElementaryStevens Point Area Public School District44314.339%43%
Point 4 the FutureStevens Point Area Public School District40658.0
McKinley CenterStevens Point Area Public School District37313.338%31%
McDill ElementaryStevens Point Area Public School District36015.047%43%
Madison ElementaryStevens Point Area Public School District36012.441%42%
Jefferson ElementaryStevens Point Area Public School District27613.850%30%
Point of Discovery School · charterStevens Point Area Public School District9311.610%50%
Charles F Fernandez Center Alt LearningStevens Point Area Public School District7715.4
Juvenile DetentionStevens Point Area Public School District84.0

37.1% 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 $869 takes 18% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.4 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
17.5%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.4×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$869
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$201,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.38Top 42%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate57.4%Bottom 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±36912,814Top 11%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$23$869Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$9,118$201,000Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income17.5%Bottom 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.2%Bottom 34%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
40/ 100
Ranks 3598 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 1.6 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
40
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
1.6
Bottom 34% nationally
Year over year
−49%
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 Stevens Point, WI, the city containing this ZIP code.

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 8°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 31.3 inches.

0°20°40°60°80°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station WISCONSIN RAPIDS ALEXANDER FLD, 14.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation31.3"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low8°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high82°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing54°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

76 / 100
Physical resilience

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

HailModerate
LightningModerate
TornadoModerate
Inland floodingModerate
Strong windModerate

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

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.

Portage County records 2.1 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 12.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 8.1 per 100,000 residents in Portage County.

Homicide
2.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
12.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
8.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
23.9
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 Portage 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 54481 rather than 54481 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

6 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 59 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Appleton IntlATW59 mi8,003 ft
Wittman RgnlOSH65 mi8,002 ft
Green Bay/Austin Straubel IntlGRB75 mi8,700 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
66
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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

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.

54481 vs Stevens Point

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

54481
Stevens Point
Median household income
$59,545
vs
$58,031
Per capita income
$33,955
vs
$32,762
Population density
431/sq mi
vs
1,490/sq mi
Median home value
$201,000
vs
$195,400
Median gross rent
$869
vs
$890
Homeownership rate
57.4%
vs
51.1%
Bachelor's degree or higher
36.4%
vs
37.9%
Poverty rate
15.6%
vs
16.6%
Median age
30.1
vs
28.4

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.