Marathon, IA population, income and ZIP codes

Marathon city is a very small community in Iowa, with 199 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #702 of 1,026 ranked by population — larger than 31% of them. The median age here is 55.4 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 Marathon city earn a median of $40,417 a year, 48.5% below the national figure of $78,538 and 40% 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 18.6% 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 Marathon city is valued at $41,700, 86.3% below the national figure and 73% below the $156,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $758 a month, 46.1% below the national figure, or roughly $9,096 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.5% 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 1×, 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. 90.1% 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.

A median age of 55.4 puts Marathon 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. With 199 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Marathon 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.