Decatur, IL population, income and ZIP codes

Decatur city is a small city in Illinois, with 70,368 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #17 of 1,462 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 39.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older 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 Decatur city earn a median of $50,809 a year, 35.3% below the national figure of $78,538 and 32% below the $74,244 median for the 698 Illinois cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 19.1% 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 Decatur city is valued at $97,300, 67.9% below the national figure and 46% below the $179,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $796 a month, 43.4% below the national figure, or roughly $9,552 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.8% 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 1.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 62.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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.