“It’s like Christmas,” quipped Dakota County Commissioner Mary Hamann-Roland as members of the Dakota County Office of Performance and Analysis (OPA) presented on updated demographic trends within the county.
And for data-lovers, Christmas did indeed come early as the last year’s trends in population growth, income, cost of living, and much, much more were expounded upon before the Dakota County General Government and Policy Committee of the Whole last week.

Population
First and foremost, Dakota County continues its march towards the second-most populus county in the state, gaining nearly 4,700 residents last year. A majority of that growth comes from migration into the county rather than birth rates, which were still positive within the county. Dakota County is estimated to overtake Ramsey County as the second most populus state in 2036.
Fastest growing among Dakota County cities is Rosemount growing an estimated 10.6% from 2023-2024. That spike in growth actually ranks Rosemount nationally as the ninth fastest growing city in the United States in 2024.
The OPA estimated that Hastings grew by 1.5% from 2023-2024 to a total population of 22,501, gaining an estimated 450 residents. Hastings ranks as the fourth fastest growing city in the county.

Cost of living and inflation
Across the county, inflation continues to outpaces earnings in a number of categories.
The median home sale price in the county increased $10,000 or 2.6% from 2023 to $390,000. The cost of living jumped 5.7% since 2023 with the OPA estimating a typical family needs to earn $75,803 in 2024 to cover basic needs. That amount translates to $24.30 per hour, which is 8% higher than the state overall.
Real median household income in the county rose to $103,330, up 2% from 2023 when adjusted for inflation.
One metric that defies this trend, however, is rentals. The median rent in Dakota county in 2024 actually went down by $17 to $1,568. This decrease comes as fewer Dakota County residents occupied rental units in 2024 than in 2023, another oddity in and of itself as the population grew that year.

Education
Dakota County continues to see lower academic outcomes than before the COVID-19 Pandemic by wide margins and decreased in 2024, according to two metrics cited by the OPA.
The percentage of Dakota County third graders who met or exceeded third grade reading standards dropped by 4.1% in 2024 to just below half of students at 49.5%. That number has fallen 13.2% since 2014.
The percentage of Dakota County eighth graders who met or exceeded eighth grader math standards dropped by 0.6% down to 43%. That number is down 16.3% since 2014.

Insurance
Rising rates of uninsured residents represented one of various “canaries in a coal mine that we need to keep an eye on,” said Commissioner Laurie Halverson.
Last year, uninsured rates across ages within Dakota County rose by 0.9%, a trend of rising uninsurance rates that began in 2017 and has continued since.
Last year residents ages 45-54 had an 8.7% uninsured rate, which jumped 4.5% since 2023. This issue also affects non-white populations more, with uninsured rates rising for Dakota count residents of all races and ethnicities except for White alone.

Tableau
The OPA’s study, along with much, much more data can be found online using Tableau, a visual analytics platform used by Dakota County.
Residents can access Tableau online to review data from this year’s report and beyond, from Dakota County’s budget by line item back through 2018 to the amount of adult felony drug charges prosecuted by the county attorney’s office each year.