Laurel, IN population, income and ZIP codes

Laurel town is a very small community in Indiana, with 474 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #522 of 976 ranked by population — larger than 46% of them. The median age here is 28 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 Laurel town earn a median of $24,663 a year, 68.6% below the national figure of $78,538 and 60% below the $61,527 median for the 355 Indiana 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 33.8% 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 Laurel town is valued at $76,100, 74.9% below the national figure and 48% below the $145,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $973 a month, 30.8% below the national figure, or roughly $11,676 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 47.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is severely stretched — a median-income renter clears the cost-burden line by a wide margin before utilities beyond the gross-rent definition. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.1×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 58.5% 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.

Laurel town is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 47.3% of median income while homes cost only 3.1× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 28 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

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.