All places > Snohomish County > Index
An editorial illustration of Index, Washington
Snohomish County · Washington

Index, WA

Of just 31 recorded jobs in Index, 45% are in education.

Population
170
10% more from 2021 to 2026
Family households
—
±47 points at 90% confidence · too uncertain for ranking or interpretation
Local jobs
31
0% more from 2018 to 2023
Median income
—
City overview

The forces shaping Index now.

01
The local economic engine

Of just 31 recorded jobs in Index, 45% are in education.

Index contains 31 workplace jobs. Education accounts for 45% of them. Government is next at 39%.

Index has only 31 recorded workplace jobs, so one school, store, or worksite can dominate the 45% education share. Treat it as a lead to investigate, not a durable specialization.

Workplace jobs: 2023
02
The commercial pulse

Index’s taxable sales rose 25% to $5.7M.

Taxable sales totaled $5.7M, 25% higher than the previous year. Retail trade produced 24% of that total.

More taxable activity gives Index businesses and public services momentum. Openings, closures, and the next annual total will show whether the 25% gain is broad or temporary.

Washington taxable sales, 2024
03
The commute that shapes the city

Index sends its largest stream of resident workers to Seattle.

22% of observed resident job destinations are in Seattle, followed by Monroe at 10%.

Current GTFS schedules 0 weekday stop departures at 0 stops inside Index; that supply still needs to be tested against the route to Seattle, the largest outside job destination. Schedule supply is not ridership.

Workplace flows: 2023 · commute modes: ACS 2024
People

Who lives here—and which households shape demand?

170 residents are counted in the latest official state estimate, 10% more than in 2021. Survey measures appear here only when their uncertainty is small enough to describe the city confidently.

Residents, 2026
170

Official annual city estimate from Washington OFM.

Population change, 2021–2026
+10%

Change in official annual city estimates; boundary changes can contribute.

Population composition

Who lives here

Estimated share of all Index residents. Each percentage uses the city’s total population as its denominator.

White, non-Hispanic100% ±87 pts
Black, non-Hispanic0.0% ±8 pts
American Indian / Alaska Native, non-Hispanic0.0% ±8 pts
Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic0.0% ±8 pts
Another race, non-Hispanic0.0% ±8 pts
Two or more races, non-Hispanic0.0% ±8 pts
Hispanic / Latino, any race0.0% ±8 pts

0% published estimate: Chinese, except Taiwanese, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Okinawan, Taiwanese, Other East Asian, Burmese, Cambodian, Filipino, Indonesian, Laotian, Malaysian, Mien, Singaporean, Thai, Vietnamese, Other Southeast Asian, Asian Indian, Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Nepalese, Pakistani, Sikh, Sri Lankan, Other South Asian, Afghan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Other Central Asian, Other Asian, specified, Other Asian, not specified, Two or more Asian groups. Zero is not proof that no residents identify with that group.

Some ranges are wide, which is common for smaller populations. Treat small differences as uncertain rather than as a precise ordering.

ACS 2020–2024 · 5-year estimates
Dataset
U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates · tables B03002 and B02015
Period
2020–2024
Geography
Index Census place
Definition
Race and Hispanic/Latino origin are self-reported Census concepts. Hispanic/Latino may be of any race; the broad display uses non-Hispanic race categories plus Hispanic/Latino of any race.
Method
Every percentage is shown with its 90% margin of error. Detailed Asian estimates use the Asian-alone universe and are divided by the city population for display.
Open the official source ↗
Work

What powers the local economy—and how dependent is it?

Education (includes academia/research) accounts for 45% of jobs located in Index. The city’s job base changed −11% between 2010 and 2023.

Jobs by sector

Workplace jobs inside the city—not the industries of residents who commute elsewhere.

Education (includes academia/research)45%
Government (Public Administration)39%
Hospitality10%
Construction / Real Estate3%
Professional Services (partial technology proxy)3%

Historical employer snapshot

Official regional employment allocation for the incorporated town; no ranked employer table · Historical employer snapshot · 2019 baseline; 2044 target. The source is older than the current employer publication window; headcounts are historical, not current.

The official growth allocation documents only three additional jobs through 2044 and provides no organization-level employer ranking.

Snohomish County Countywide Planning Policies ↗. Headcounts change faster than Census employment totals.

Housing

What kinds of homes exist—and where is pressure showing?

The current household survey is too uncertain to characterize tenure or cost pressure, and no city-level permit estimate is available. Metroscope does not substitute a guess.

Home value profile

What owner-occupied homes are worth

Owner estimates from the 2020–2024 American Community Survey—not listings, recorded sales, or appraisals. The final Census band is open-ended: $2 million and above.

Median estimate$580k±247128.0 at 90% confidence · too uncertain for ranking or interpretation
Middle half of homes$436k–$901kLower to upper quartile of owner estimates
Luxury-home concentration9%≈6 homes · estimated at $2M+
Under $500k43%
$500–749k21%
$750–999k18%
$1–1.49M9%
$1.5–1.99M0%
$2M+9%

These estimates are useful as a distribution, but the survey intervals are too wide to rank Index or identify one definitive value range.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-year tables B25075–B25078. Values cover owner-occupied homes only and do not measure current asking prices or recent purchase prices.

What builders are proposing now

The Building Permits Survey does not publish a usable place estimate here, and the housing-structure survey is too uncertain. A city permit source is needed before making a current construction claim.

Authorizations are not starts or completions, but they are a more current signal of intended construction than an uncertain housing-mix estimate.

Mobility

Where do residents need to go—and who has a real alternative to driving?

The current covered GTFS feeds matched no scheduled stop inside Index’s boundary. That does not rule out service just outside the city or service absent from the covered feeds. The 2020–2024 ACS separately estimates how workers usually commuted; it does not count every transit trip or describe today's schedule.

Weekday departures
0

Scheduled stop departures in the current covered-feed snapshot—not riders.

Transit stops
0

Matched inside city limits; nearby cross-border stops are separate.

Top outside workplace
Seattle

22% of observed resident job destinations in 2023 LODES.

Where resident workers go

Top observed workplace destinations.

Seattle22%
Peak drive: 80–150 min
Monroe10%
Peak drive: 40–80 min
Bellevue8%
Peak drive: 70–120 min
Mountlake Terrace6%
Peak drive: 75–130 min
Sultan6%

The strongest outside connection is Seattle. Employer or corridor changes there can alter everyday life in Index, even when nothing changes inside the city boundary.

How residents usually get to work

Index has 0 scheduled weekday stop departures at 0 stops in the current covered feeds. The household survey is too uncertain to describe the citywide commute-mode split confidently.

The useful next answer is route-specific: travel time, frequency, transfers, and walking distance from a particular home to a likely workplace.

Typical drive times

About how long does it take to get where people go?

Work destinations are selected from observed resident job flows. These are broad, reviewed planning ranges from representative parts of Index—not live-traffic or door-to-door predictions.

Starting area
Seattle employment area

Seattle is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Index, representing 16% of matched resident jobs from this city.

80–150 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Monroe employment area

Monroe is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Index, representing 7% of matched resident jobs from this city.

40–80 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Downtown Bellevue employment core

Bellevue is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Index, representing 6% of matched resident jobs from this city.

70–120 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Mountlake Terrace employment area

Mountlake Terrace is a LODES-selected resident workplace destination for Index, representing 4% of matched resident jobs from this city.

75–130 minWeekday morning peak
Details

Highway-dominant corridor: distance converted with a reviewed 1.25x circuity factor and an assumed 45 km/h peak-effective / 70 km/h off-peak effective speed, then widened and rounded to a broad band. The morning inbound peak is shown; the evening outbound return is assumed to fall within the same broad band.

Method, review date, and sources

Planning estimate; actual time varies by departure time, route, traffic, weather, incidents, and closures.

Estimates are derived from reviewed origin/destination coordinates using a documented distance-to-time heuristic (circuity factor and assumed effective speed by corridor type and period), then deliberately widened and rounded to a broad band. No live routing or traffic API was called.

Estimates reviewed 2026-09-10. Starting point: selected representative area.

City boundary and regional context● nearby   ● work destinations
Daily life

Community institutions and local activity

Public schools, libraries, pharmacies, and listed everyday places show part of the local inventory inside Index; taxable sales show the scale and direction of local commercial activity. Residents also use places across city lines, so a boundary count is not the same as access.

Local field guide

Places for everyday needs in Index

Care, errands, food, fitness, and personal services gathered into one browsable directory.

Counts reflect current directory records associated with the city, not a complete business census or a measure of access. Large categories show a sample.

Sources: U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), snapshot 2026-08-13; Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-08-19.0; U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (NPPES NPI Registry), snapshot 2026-09-09.

Education footprint

The schools inside Index.

Institution counts and enrollment will remain separate. A school can serve students from outside the city, and residents may attend a school across the boundary or elsewhere in their district.

Public elementary0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Public middle0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Public high0

None in the current OSPI city-boundary match.

Other public programs1
  • Index Elementary SchoolIndex School District

Public-school names and levels come from OSPI. Private schools, complete IPEDS college coverage, enrollment by level, and graduate destinations are active additions; absence here should not yet be read as “none.”

Retail role

Index records relatively little retail activity for its population.

Retail sales per resident fall below 63% of the cities tracked by Metroscope. That may mean residents rely more on nearby cities for shopping, but sales records alone cannot prove where they shop.

Retail sales per resident, 2024
$8,092

Higher than 37% of 82 tracked cities.

Change from 2023
+0.3%

Nominal retail-sales change; inflation can account for some or all of an increase.

See the underlying sales totals
Retail trade, 2024
$1.4M

Sales reported by businesses classified in retail trade.

All taxable sales
$5.7M

Includes taxable activity outside retail trade.

Retail share
24%

Retailing industries’ share of all taxable sales.

Tracked-city median
$10,670

Median retail sales per resident across cities with comparable data.

Civic life

Index is governed as a town—not a city.

Index voters elect the mayor separately from the council. The mayor leads city administration, while the council adopts laws, policy, and the budget—so executive accountability sits directly with an elected office.

Government form
Mayor–Council

The mayor is separately elected to lead administration.

Mayor listed
Norman Johnson

The separately elected chief executive.

Council representatives listed
4

Current directory entries; vacancies or updates can make this differ from authorized seats.

Incorporated
1907

Town town under Washington law.

Where decisions happen

When does the Index council meet?

Regular meeting schedule listed in the current municipal directory:

1st Mon - 7:00pm

Schedules change and special meetings are separate. Check the city site for the live agenda, staff reports, public-comment rules, and video.

Election record

Where to check Index election results.

Regular municipal offices generally return in 2027. Special measures can appear earlier, and charter provisions can differ.

The next data step is city-specific turnout, contested-seat share, ballot measures, and campaign money. Until those are normalized, Metroscope links the official record instead of guessing from partisan elections.

Structure, meetings, and current officials: Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington (MRSC), checked 2026-09-08. Election administration and certified results: the county election offices listed above. Confirm live agendas and officeholders at the source.

Change

What is changing the city’s trajectory?

Population and jobs do not always move together. Reading both helps distinguish a growing employment center from a city whose households are increasingly tied to opportunities elsewhere.

Residents
170

10% more from 2021 to 2026

Local jobs
31

0% more from 2018 to 2023

Retail trade, 2023–2024
+0.3%

Nominal taxable-sales change; not adjusted for inflation.

Data & details — selected comparable metrics across 82 places
Local jobs
LODES
31
1,506656,821
Higher than only 0% of places
Long-run job change
LODES
−11%
−3%+166%
Higher than only 0% of places
Weekday transit departures
GTFS snapshot
0
19256,385
Higher than only 0% of places
Multifamily permitting
Census BPS
—
Recent annual pace compared with this city's own 2010–2025 record
2BR Fair Market Rent
HUD, county-level
$2,549
FY2027 HUD program benchmark; chart shows FY2020–FY2027 history. Shared across this HUD metro area—not a place-specific market rent.
Work — sector breakdown
Share of local jobs by sector · LODES · workplace location, not resident industry
Education (includes academia/research)45% (14)
Government (Public Administration)39% (12)
Hospitality10% (3)
Construction / Real Estate3% (1)
Professional Services (partial technology proxy)3% (1)
Finance0% (0)
Other0% (0)
Administrative & Support Services0% (0)
Retail0% (0)
Healthcare & Social Assistance0% (0)
Logistics / Industrial0% (0)
Manufacturing (includes, but is not limited to, aerospace)0% (0)
Information (partial technology proxy)0% (0)
Where Index's workforce lives (inbound)
LODES OD — commuting flows into local jobs
Gold Bar
25.0%
Sultan
16.7%
Covington
8.3%
Lake Stevens
8.3%
Issaquah
8.3%