Santa Cruz, CA population, income and ZIP codes

Santa Cruz city is a small city in California, with 60,953 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #152 of 1,618 ranked by population — larger than 90% of them. The median age here is 30.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Santa Cruz city earn a median of $111,427 a year, 41.9% above the national figure of $78,538 and 22% above the $91,111 median for the 1,050 California cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 17.6% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Santa Cruz city is valued at $1,180,100, 289% above the national figure and 100% above the $589,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $2,302 a month, 63.7% above the national figure, or roughly $27,624 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.8% 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 10.6×, 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. 47.7% 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 10.6× 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. 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.

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.