Palm Springs, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Palm Springs city is a small city in California, with 44,998 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #205 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 87% of them. The median age here is 57.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Palm Springs city earn a median of $71,979 a year, 8.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 21% 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 13.7% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Palm Springs city is valued at $567,300, 87% above the national figure and 4% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,473 a month, 4.8% above the national figure, or roughly $17,676 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.6% 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 7.9×, 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. 65% 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.

Home values sit at 7.9× 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 57.8 puts Palm Springs 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.