McCracken, Kansas.
. Hays, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$717 (+125%) 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.
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
Living in McCracken, Rush County, Kansas
McCracken is a city of 152 people in Rush County. Unemployment in Rush County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 4.1% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Rush County work in schools and health care, then farming.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. McCracken is a very small city in Rush County, Kansas, where neighbors are likely to know one another by name. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are hot, with July the warmest. Few adults here hold a four-year degree, and the typical commute is a fairly long one.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in farming, forestry and mining, and in manufacturing, with some in transport, warehouses and utilities. Across Rush County, some of the largest workplaces are Rush County Memorial Hospital, LaCrosse Schools and KBK Industries. Rush County had fewer jobs last year than the year before, and unemployment there is unchanged from a year earlier.
Things to do. For a day out, Cedar Bluff State Park and Cedar Bluff Reservoir are protected parkland and a reservoir, both a longer drive away. The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum, also a longer drive away, is a museum devoted to the fencing that shaped the Plains. Fort Hays is a historic fort, likewise a longer drive from town.
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- 6%of adults have a degree
- 31 mintypical commute
What people in Rush County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Rush County had 1,029 jobs in 2025, 4.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 93° and lows near 65°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Brownell 3NW weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Rush County
- KBK IndustriesTanks, storage, plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing104
- Rush County Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital84FTE
- Locust Grove VillageNursing homes70
- LaCrosse SchoolsSchool district49FTE
- Otis-Bison SchoolsSchool district45FTE
- Messer North AmericaIndustrial gases manufacturing37
- Flame EngineeringManufacture propane torches25
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 276 people in all across the county; McCracken has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- HailVery high
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in McCracken’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 Rush County and the Hays, KS metro.
McCracken 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.
Zip codes with a McCracken address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls McCracken — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.