Bakersfield, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Bakersfield city is a mid-size city in California, with 408,366 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #9 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 31.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Bakersfield city earn a median of $77,397 a year, 1.5% below the national figure of $78,538 and 15% below the $91,111 median for the 1,050 California 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 Bakersfield city is valued at $347,300, 14.5% above the national figure and 41% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,371 a month, 2.5% below the national figure, or roughly $16,452 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 21.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 60.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.