Merced, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Merced city is a small city in California, with 89,766 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #92 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 94% of them. The median age here is 29.8 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 Merced city earn a median of $59,938 a year, 23.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 34% 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 23% 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 Merced city is valued at $347,700, 14.6% above the national figure and 41% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,293 a month, 8% below the national figure, or roughly $15,516 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25.9% 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 5.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 44.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. 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 29.8 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.

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.