🍩 Your free doughnut sample

This is a real county dossier, exactly what subscribers see: every agency's facts about one place, lined up with sources. Every county and ZIP code has one, and they come with every desk. See the desks and pricing →

The story here

Polk County, IA is home to about 497,441 people, part of the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro area. About 14% of residents are 65 or older, and the typical resident is 36. The typical household earns $81,621 a year, and about 10% of people live below the poverty line.

Unemployment was 3.7% in 2025, with 287,697 people in the workforce. During 2023, more households moved in than moved out (+468 tax returns).

There are about 44 clinicians billing Medicare for every 10,000 people — higher than the state (38). The federal government lists it as short on primary care, mental health, and dental care. 92,013 people here are on Medicare; 44% chose Medicare Advantage.

It has had 3 federal disaster declarations in the last five years, most recently Severe Storms And Flooding (2026-09-01). Traffic deaths (47 in 2024) run lower than the state rate.

Written from the numbers on this page.

Since 2021 — 2021: 4 opened, 1 closed; 2022: 4 opened, 19 closed; 2023: 1 opened, 9 closed; 2024: 4 opened, 1 new owner; 2025: 2 opened, 4 closed; 2026 (through Jun): 1 changed type.

Through CMS's file of June 2026 (CMS publishes quarterly, a few months behind). Opened = first day in Medicare (new, or newly certified). Closed = left Medicare. Changed type = same place under a new CMS number (e.g. hospital → rural emergency hospital), not a closing. New owner = CMS change of ownership. Only providers Medicare certifies; offices, pharmacies, assisted living, and labs aren't here.

Enrollment by year: 2014 75,618 · 2015 76,878 · 2016 77,964 · 2017 78,930 · 2018 79,531 · 2019 80,777 · 2020 78,403 · 2021 78,890 · 2022 78,991 · 2023 78,565 · 2024 77,436. Students are leaving faster than households — families with children going first shows up in school rolls years before the Census average.

NCES Common Core of Data (every public school, every year) and NCES school neighborhood poverty. Enrollment is the October count. Free and reduced-price lunch shares aren't comparable where a state or district serves free meals to everyone. A school is often a community's shelter or clinic site, but these files don't say whether a building has a generator or a kitchen.

Colleges here · 44,971 students over the 2023–24 school year

Federal student-loan payments were paused from March 2020 to September 2023, so recent default rates are near zero for most colleges.

Census school district finances (districts that cover the county, counted whole); EDFacts graduation rates (ranges read at midpoints — ours; district-level years end 2020–21; Illinois 2017–18); NCES Private School Survey; IMLS Public Libraries Survey; Civil Rights Data Collection (high schools = regular schools with grades 11 and 12); Education Stabilization Fund reports (ESSER III; staff = full-time-equivalent positions); NCES IPEDS (students enrolled at any point in the year) and Federal Student Aid (three-year default rate; Pell dollars paid in the award year).

Busiest truck trips: Dallas County, IA (4 min); Jasper County, IA (4 min); Story County, IA (5 min); Warren County, IA (5 min); Madison County, IA (23 min). Truck times on its busy trips are -2% since 2018.

Median elapsed time for real freight trucks (BTS experimental GPS sample), county line to county line, stops and rest breaks included. Full truck freight view on Business & Site Planning.

For-profit 648Nonprofit 216Woman-owned 122Minority-owned 93Manufacturer 60Veteran-owned 58Local government 48Service-disabled veteran-owned 35DOT disadvantaged business (DBE) 21Small disadvantaged (self-certified) 10SBA 8(a) 3SBA HUBZone 1

Main lines of work: Other or not given (310), Professional and technical services (97), Construction (96), Health care and social assistance (82), Manufacturing (57), Administrative, support, cleanup, and remediation (49).

2 federal award notices here in the last year, $1,325,577 where the amount was posted.

Businesses, nonprofits, and governments with an active SAM.gov registration (needed to win federal contracts and most grants) whose address is in this county; owner types are self-reported in SAM. Open bids are federal notices with the place of performance here. Includes 78 one-person businesses (not named). Source: SAM.gov entity registrations (public monthly extract) and contract opportunities.

Disposed of since FY2021: Des Moines U.s. Courthouse (Public Sale, $2,600,000, FY2025); Des Moines, Ia R/w 31 (Other, FY2025); Readjustment Counseling Service (Lease Expiration, FY2023); Des Moines, Ia R/w 5 (Other, FY2022); Va Central Iowa Hcs Vamc Des Moines, Ia Divi. (Lease Expiration, FY2022) and more.

FY2025 reports to GSA. From each agency's report to GSA. The disposal path runs: agency decides to dispose → reports it excess to GSA → GSA declares it surplus (offered to other agencies, then local governments and nonprofits for public use, then sold). Empty and underused apply to buildings only. Civilian agencies only — military bases report separately. Assets withheld for security keep their state but not their location. Every state's list is on Business & Site Planning.

Transit in the Des Moines, IA area carried 3.7 million trips in 2025. 18% of renters pay more than half their income for housing. New homes permitted in 2025: Des Moines 1,676 · Ankeny 1,326 · Urbandale 646 · West Des Moines 344 · Altoona 183.

EPA Smart Location Database v3; Census ACS 2020–2024 (tracts); HUD CHAS 2017–2021; 2020 Census urban areas; National Transit Database; Census building permits.

Polk County is among the best-off fifth of the country — decile 2 of 10 within its state (10 = hardest-hit). By part (U.S. percentile, 100 = hardest): School 46 · Income & poverty 13 · Jobs 16 · Housing 21 · Home life (cars, phones, single parents) 39.

Data Doughnut neighborhood hardship index. Computed by Data Doughnut from Census ACS 5-year 2020–2024 block groups, using the published method of Singh (2003); not the Neighborhood Atlas ADI. Our reading. Every block group (a few hundred to a few thousand people) gets a score from 17 Census measures — school, income and poverty, jobs, housing costs, crowding, plumbing, phones, cars, and single-parent families — weighted the way Singh (2003) published. Percentile 100 = the hardest-hit 1% of U.S. neighborhoods. Counties, tracts, and ZIP codes are ranked on the people-weighted average of their block groups. Block groups with fewer than 100 people or 30 households are not scored. How it's built.

91,120 people in Polk County got Social Security in December 2025 — 71,110 retired workers, 9,930 disabled workers. 8,205 got SSI (low income, aged, blind, or disabled), about $75.4 million a year.

Social Security Administration, OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County / by ZIP Code; SSI Recipients by State and County.

Money and people

Census population estimates and Census of Governments (2022, every government; revenue includes utilities a city runs); VA VetPop; CFPB mortgage performance (larger counties only); U.S. Courts bankruptcy filings by the debtor's county.

Inside the county — where it differs

A county number is a bundle. These show the same measures neighborhood by neighborhood, ZIP by ZIP and district by district, so a part that runs far from the county total is visible.

Health by ZIP

CDC PLACES model-based estimates for adults by ZIP (ZIPs whose people mostly live here); the overall figure weights each ZIP by its people. Estimates, not counts. Source: CDC PLACES (ZIP / ZCTA).

Income by neighborhood

Typical household income runs from $29,881 to $198,056 across the county's 111 neighborhoods (census tracts); 24,419 people (4.9%) live where 30% or more are below the poverty line.

Lowest first. Median household income and poverty for each Census tract (neighborhoods of about 1,200–8,000 people); high poverty = 30% or more of people below the poverty line. ACS 5-year estimates carry a margin of error. Source: Census ACS 5-year 2024, census tracts.

Graduation by school district

Lowest first, 2020-2021. Four-year graduation rate for each school district. Small districts are published as ranges (like 80–84%); we show the middle and the published range. Source: U.S. Department of Education EDFacts.

Housing help, local lenders and federal money managed here

USDA Rural Development multifamily reports; HIFLD mobile home parks; NCUA call reports; CDFI Fund transactions; Federal Audit Clearinghouse single audits (organizations by their ZIP code).

Land, energy and outside money

NOAA climate normals; HIFLD; U.S. Wind Turbine Database (newest release); NPS visitation; ONRR; VA expenditures (subtotals left out); DoD OLDCC; FMCSA carrier census; EIA diesel prices, stocks and fuel sales — Diesel is priced by EIA region, not by county; California is priced on its own. Stocks include heating oil, which is the same fuel.

Health, safety and services

Sources: CDC NCHS provisional county drug overdose deaths (12 months ending the month shown; provisional); SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health, substate estimates 2021-2023; HUD Point-in-Time count (Continuums of Care); county ↔ CoC crosswalk (Byrne 2017); CMS Exchange public-use files (plans, service areas, rates); benchmark computed by us; HRSA Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program funded organizations; EPA ECHO (Enforcement and Compliance History Online), 2026-10-04; Federal Judicial Center Integrated Database, civil filings; Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEQ), version 2.0; EPA estimates of large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) by county.

Road safety

47 people died in 40 fatal crashes in 2024 — 9.3 per 100,000 people, against 11.1 for the state.

By year: 2017: 26 · 2018: 27 · 2019: 34 · 2020: 38 · 2021: 45 · 2022: 33 · 2023: 39 · 2024: 47. Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Small counties swing a lot from year to year.

Counts clinicians who billed Medicare Part B from an office in this county that year — doctors, nurse practitioners, therapists and others (labs, ambulance services and other suppliers left out). Clinicians who see no Medicare patients, or very few, aren't counted. CMS Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners (by Provider), rolled up to the county of each clinician's office by Data Doughnut.

Per 1,000 = that group's share of all Part D prescriptions written here. Medicare Part D prescriptions written by clinicians whose office is in this county — not where patients live. CMS hides very small counts (under 11 per clinician and drug), so drug totals run about 10% under national figures. CMS Medicare Part D Prescribers (by Provider; by Provider and Drug), rolled up to the county of each prescriber's office by Data Doughnut.