Palmdale, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Palmdale city is a mid-size city in California, with 165,487 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #32 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 33.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. 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 Palmdale city earn a median of $81,151 a year, 3.3% above the national figure of $78,538 and 11% 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 14.6% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Palmdale city is valued at $435,300, 43.5% above the national figure and 26% below the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,736 a month, 23.5% above the national figure, or roughly $20,832 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25.7% 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 5.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 66.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. 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.

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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.