Elk City, KS population, income and ZIP codes

Elk City city is a very small community in Kansas, with 281 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #387 of 740 ranked by population — larger than 47% of them. The median age here is 46 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 Elk City city earn a median of $35,417 a year, 54.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 44% below the $63,750 median for the 200 Kansas cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 26.7% 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 Elk City city is valued at $22,300, 92.6% below the national figure and 83% below the $131,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $921 a month, 34.5% below the national figure, or roughly $11,052 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 31.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 0.6×, 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. 77.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Elk City city is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 31.2% of median income while homes cost only 0.6× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. With 281 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Elk City city against its county rather than against national figures.

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.