Postville, IA population, income and ZIP codes

Postville city is a small town in Iowa, with 2,787 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #131 of 1,026 ranked by population — larger than 87% of them. The median age here is 25.4 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 Postville city earn a median of $47,281 a year, 39.8% below the national figure of $78,538 and 30% 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 25.6% 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 Postville city is valued at $100,300, 66.9% below the national figure and 36% below the $156,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $872 a month, 38% below the national figure, or roughly $10,464 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.1% 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 2.1×, 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. 55.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. 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 25.4 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.