Jefferson, IA population, income and ZIP codes

Jefferson city is a small town in Iowa, with 4,164 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #101 of 1,026 ranked by population — larger than 90% of them. The median age here is 51.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 Jefferson city earn a median of $54,286 a year, 30.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 20% below the $67,791 median for the 290 Iowa 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 8.4% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Jefferson city is valued at $126,900, 58.2% below the national figure and 19% below the $156,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $745 a month, 47% below the national figure, or roughly $8,940 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.5% 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 2.3×, 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. 70.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

A median age of 51.5 puts Jefferson city well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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.