Ames, IA
Metropolitan statistical area, CBSA 11180 · 42.04, -93.70
3 findings fired for Ames, IA this run, against a typical home value of $277,302 in September 2026 and covered employment of 54,489 in 2026 Q1.
- 22nd pct · 305th of 393 US metro areas · median 105,500
Total employment in the BLS OEWS occupational tables for this metro area. It is an occupational survey total, not the QCEW payroll count below.
An estimate: the sum of the member counties BLS publishes, not BLS's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. The arithmetic is printed below.
- 40th pct · 225th of 379 US metro areas · median $305,707
Zillow Home Value Index, metro file, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- 13th pct · 332nd of 382 US metro areas · median $1,504
Zillow Observed Rent Index, metro file.
- 75th pct · 94th of 379 US metro areas · median 16.9
typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.
- 57th pct · 161st of 379 US metro areas · median 2.0%
Zillow's own twelve-month change on the metro row.
A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank: the smallest published value in the cohort is 0 and the largest is 100, and tied values share the average of the ranks they span. It is not the share of entities below the value, so 0 means smallest, not none below. Entities that did not publish the metric are outside the cohort entirely and are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.
Occupation mix #
The 30 largest detailed occupations and all 22 SOC major groups in Ames, IA, from the bundled BLS OEWS release.
| SOC | Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Location quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35-3023 | Fast Food and Counter Workers | 1,620 | $29,560 | 1.17 |
| 41-2011 | Cashiers | 1,470 | $30,470 | 1.33 |
| 41-2031 | Retail Salespersons | 1,460 | $35,090 | 1.04 |
| 53-7065 | Stockers and Order Fillers | 1,110 | $38,070 | 1.09 |
| 29-1141 | Registered Nurses | 1,070 | $76,910 | 0.88 |
| 11-1021 | General and Operations Managers | 1,040 | $112,350 | 0.82 |
| 37-2011 | Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | 1,030 | $36,360 | 1.29 |
| 35-3031 | Waiters and Waitresses | 1,010 | $29,250 | 1.24 |
| 25-9045 | Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary | 780 | $30,720 | 1.52 |
| 31-1131 | Nursing Assistants | 770 | $42,980 | 1.47 |
| 13-1199 | Business Operations Specialists, All Other | 710 | $78,250 | 1.82 |
| 43-9061 | Office Clerks, General | 710 | $45,740 | 0.80 |
| 31-1120 | Home Health and Personal Care Aides | 700 | $37,000 | 0.45 |
| 43-4051 | Customer Service Representatives | 690 | $45,450 | 0.74 |
| 49-9071 | Maintenance and Repair Workers, General | 670 | $55,020 | 1.22 |
| 53-7062 | Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand | 650 | $42,070 | 0.61 |
| 53-3032 | Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers | 640 | $55,770 | 0.87 |
| 43-6014 | Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 620 | $48,200 | 1.02 |
| 47-2061 | Construction Laborers | 600 | $52,140 | 1.52 |
| 35-2014 | Cooks, Restaurant | 570 | $37,170 | 1.13 |
| 13-2011 | Accountants and Auditors | 530 | $84,740 | 1.02 |
| 35-1012 | First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers | 490 | $43,400 | 1.11 |
| 15-1252 | Software Developers | 470 | $126,610 | 0.77 |
| 43-3031 | Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 470 | $49,610 | 0.95 |
| 51-2090 | Miscellaneous Assemblers and Fabricators | 470 | $51,400 | 0.94 |
| 35-3011 | Bartenders | 450 | $24,890 | 1.65 |
| 25-2021 | Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education | 440 | $62,190 | 0.88 |
| 41-4012 | Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products | 440 | $77,100 | 0.99 |
| 43-6013 | Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants | 420 | $41,680 | 1.20 |
| 21-1012 | Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors | 400 | $56,690 | 3.18 |
| SOC | Occupation | Jobs | Mean annual wage | Location quotient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35-0000 | Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations | 5,630 | $32,070 | 1.14 |
| 43-0000 | Office and Administrative Support Occupations | 5,290 | $48,510 | 0.83 |
| 25-0000 | Educational Instruction and Library Occupations | 5,070 | $71,120 | 1.55 |
| 41-0000 | Sales and Related Occupations | 4,750 | $46,400 | 0.99 |
| 53-0000 | Transportation and Material Moving Occupations | 3,880 | $46,170 | 0.79 |
| 11-0000 | Management Occupations | 3,850 | $119,560 | 0.96 |
| 51-0000 | Production Occupations | 3,680 | $53,710 | 1.20 |
| 13-0000 | Business and Financial Operations Occupations | 3,530 | $81,000 | 0.93 |
| 29-0000 | Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations | 3,070 | $85,360 | 0.87 |
| 49-0000 | Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations | 2,350 | $62,810 | 1.07 |
| 47-0000 | Construction and Extraction Occupations | 2,280 | $60,100 | 0.99 |
| 31-0000 | Healthcare Support Occupations | 2,080 | $41,650 | 0.73 |
| 37-0000 | Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations | 1,840 | $38,780 | 1.13 |
| 15-0000 | Computer and Mathematical Occupations | 1,840 | $97,300 | 0.97 |
| 19-0000 | Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations | 1,370 | $78,870 | 2.60 |
| 39-0000 | Personal Care and Service Occupations | 1,350 | $36,060 | 1.15 |
| 17-0000 | Architecture and Engineering Occupations | 1,200 | $88,810 | 1.28 |
| 21-0000 | Community and Social Service Occupations | 990 | $58,050 | 1.03 |
| 27-0000 | Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations | 770 | $60,140 | 1.05 |
| 33-0000 | Protective Service Occupations | 730 | $57,830 | 0.54 |
| 23-0000 | Legal Occupations | 200 | $94,960 | 0.43 |
| 45-0000 | Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations | 120 | $45,690 | 0.75 |
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan area tables, committed to this repository rather than fetched. A location quotient above 1 means the occupation is more concentrated here than in the United States as a whole; wages are means, not medians, and BLS suppresses a wage where its sample is too thin.
Housing #
The typical home in the Ames, IA metro was worth $277,302 in September 2026.
25 months to September 2026. Rent: $1,162 in September 2026.
Zillow Home Value Index and Observed Rent Index, metro files, joined by the RegionID recorded in the place manifest. Both are smoothed indices of the middle third of the market, not sale prices.
Employment, rolled up from member counties #
About 54,489 covered jobs across the 2 member counties BLS published.
- jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 2 of 2 member counties BLS publishes.
- 54,489 = 8,546 + 45,943
| County | FIPS |
|---|---|
| Boone County, IA | 19015 |
| Story County, IA | 19169 |
The place manifest names 2 member counties for this metro, fewer than the 5 a cohort needs before a percentile means anything, so no within-metro position is offered for its counties. The positions above are against the other 392 metropolitan areas, which is a cohort that does not depend on the county pull.
There are no QCEW metro employment totals here, and that is a property of the data rather than an omission: BLS does publish MSA area codes (C####), but lib/economy's QCEW reader handles only county (SSCCC), state (SS000) and national (US000) rows at aggregation levels 74, 54 and 14, and the /api/economy route regex rejects anything else. So this figure is a sum of member counties, labelled an estimate, with every county it could not count named.
National indicator context #
None of these series is keyed to this metro area. They are national, gauge, single-state or port series, shown as context for the numbers above.
| Indicator | Latest | Unit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi River at Memphis, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Mississippi River at St. Louis, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Ohio River at Louisville, stage | 17.95 | ft | ok |
| Missouri River at St. Joseph, stage | not published | ft | no data |
| Colorado River below Hoover Dam, flow (Hoover releases) | 5,170.00 | ft³/s | ok |
| Texas reservoirs, statewide percent full | 72.20 | % | ok |
| Laredo truck crossings, monthly | 258,700.00 | trucks | ok |
| Los Angeles + Long Beach container volume, annual | 10,513,167.00 | TEU | watch |
| Containerships waiting for a berth, all US ports | 7.00 | ships | ok |
| Shanghai to Los Angeles container rate | 7,848.00 | $ per 40 ft box | watch |
| US diesel retail price | not published | $ per gallon | no data |
| WTI crude oil, spot | 101.91 | $ per barrel | watch |
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate | 7.40 | % | watch |
| Housing starts, annual rate | 1,275.00 | thousands of units | ok |
| Building permits, annual rate | 1,403.00 | thousands of units | ok |
| Case-Shiller US home price index | 337.31 | index, Jan 2000 = 100 | ok |
| Unemployment rate | 4.20 | % | ok |
| US goods and services trade balance, monthly | -105,572.00 | $ millions | ok |
| Retail sales excluding food services, monthly | 652,115.00 | $ millions | ok |
lib/indicators has no geographic selection: every registry entry is a United States, gauge, Texas, port, crossing or world series, and no entry is metro-keyed. Reading these as this metro's own readings would be wrong.
What changed #
Ames, IA: 3 findings, 3 noted
noteThe next Unemployment rate (BLS Employment Situation, monthly) covering Ames, IA is due between 2026-10-30 and 2026-11-13, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.
Show the arithmetic
- window = 2026-10-30 to 2026-11-13, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern
estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date
noteThe next Zillow ZHVI typical home value (monthly) covering Ames, IA is due between 2026-11-14 and 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.
Show the arithmetic
- window = 2026-11-14 to 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern
estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date
noteThe next Zillow ZORI typical rent (monthly) covering Ames, IA is due between 2026-11-14 and 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.
Show the arithmetic
- window = 2026-11-14 to 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern
estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date
The full Ames, IA brief, with the arithmetic behind every sentence.
Metro briefs are thinner by construction: with no QCEW metro path, their findings come from Zillow's metro home value and rent rows, the county rollup, and nearby crossings and ports.