Bluford, Illinois.
. Mount Vernon, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$830 (+115%) since Jan 2020.
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
Living in Bluford, Jefferson County, Illinois
Bluford is a village of 630 people in Jefferson County. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Jefferson County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in shops, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Bluford is a small village in Jefferson County, Illinois, where most homes are lived in by their owners. Household incomes across the county are modest, and a share of residents live below the poverty line. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few work from home. Winters are cold, with highs near the freezing mark in January and a little snow each year, while July brings hot summers and plenty of rain across the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in shops, in schools, hospitals and social care, in transport, warehouses and utilities, and in professional and business services. Across Jefferson County, some of the largest workplaces are Continental Tire the Americas, SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital and Walmart. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year ago, and the county has added a few more jobs over the past year.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Rend Lake is a reservoir and the Big Muddy River is a river, both a longer drive away. Also a longer drive away is Wayne Fitzgerrell State Recreation Area, a protected area with space to walk and fish. The Sesser Opera House, a theatre, is another trip of the same kind.
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- 207households
- 9%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 3%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 19,432 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 67°. About 10 inches of snow and 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mount Vernon Northeast weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Jefferson County
- Continental Tire the AmericasTires manufacturing3,850
- Mt VernonGeneral warehousing and storage969
- SSM Health Good Samaritan HospitalGeneral hospital748FTE
- Big Muddy River Correctional CenterCorrectional institutions427
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters350
- Rend Lake CollegeTwo-year college305
- Mount Vernon SD 80School district301FTE
- Help At HomeHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical278
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,139 people in all across the county; Bluford has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Bluford’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Jefferson County and the Mount Vernon, IL metro.
Bluford home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Bluford5
Zip codes with a Bluford address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Bluford — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.