Blue Lake, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Blue Lake city is a very small community in California, with 997 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1060 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 34% of them. The median age here is 52.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 Blue Lake city earn a median of $52,813 a year, 32.8% below the national figure of $78,538 and 42% below the $91,111 median for the 1,050 California cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 25.4% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Blue Lake city is valued at $460,800, 51.9% above the national figure and 22% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,247 a month, 11.3% below the national figure, or roughly $14,964 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 28.3% 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 8.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 45.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Home values sit at 8.7× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere. A median age of 52.4 puts Blue Lake city well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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.