Harper, IA population, income and ZIP codes

Harper city is a very small community in Iowa, with 130 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #804 of 1,026 ranked by population — larger than 21% of them. The median age here is 22.3 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 Harper city earn a median of $70,417 a year, 10.3% below the national figure of $78,538 and 4% above the $67,791 median for the 290 Iowa 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 7% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Harper city is valued at $95,000, 68.7% below the national figure and 39% below the $156,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $850 a month, 39.5% below the national figure, or roughly $10,200 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 14.5% 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 1.3×, 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. 87.9% 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. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

A median age of 22.3 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. With 130 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Harper city against its county rather than against national figures.

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.