Wainwright, AK population, income and ZIP codes

Wainwright city is a very small community in Alaska, with 612 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #109 of 355 ranked by population — larger than 69% of them. The median age here is 29 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Wainwright city earn a median of $85,750 a year, 9.2% above the national figure of $78,538 and 6% above the $81,250 median for the 73 Alaska cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 16% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Wainwright city is valued at $109,100, 64% below the national figure and 64% below the $305,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $765 a month, 45.6% below the national figure, or roughly $9,180 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 10.7% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 1.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 66.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

A median age of 29 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address. Median income runs above the national figure while poverty also runs above it — a split distribution, not a uniformly comfortable place. Averages hide that; the two numbers together do not.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.