Melba, ID population, income and ZIP codes

Melba city is a very small community in Idaho, with 624 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #132 of 236 ranked by population — larger than 44% of them. The median age here is 31 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Melba city earn a median of $53,500 a year, 31.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 16% below the $63,864 median for the 100 Idaho 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 19.5% 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 Melba city is valued at $306,000, essentially level with the national figure and 13% above the $271,500 peer median, while median gross rent runs $993 a month, 29.4% below the national figure, or roughly $11,916 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.3% 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 5.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 87.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 624 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Melba city against its county rather than against national figures.

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.