Wahiawa, HI population, income and ZIP codes

Wahiawa CDP is a mid-size town in Hawaii, with 17,515 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #16 of 163 ranked by population — larger than 90% of them. The median age here is 39.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 Wahiawa CDP earn a median of $86,883 a year, 10.6% above the national figure of $78,538 and 6% below the $92,062 median for the 124 Hawaii 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 17.2% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Wahiawa CDP is valued at $716,800, 136.3% above the national figure and 7% below the $768,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,443 a month, 2.6% above the national figure, or roughly $17,316 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.9% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 8.3×, 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. 53.1% 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 8.3× 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.

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.