Plains, KS population, income and ZIP codes

Plains city is a small town in Kansas, with 1,308 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #168 of 740 ranked by population — larger than 77% of them. The median age here is 26.8 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 Plains city earn a median of $75,500 a year, 3.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 18% above the $63,750 median for the 200 Kansas cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 10.4% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Plains city is valued at $127,700, 57.9% below the national figure and 3% below the $131,300 peer median, while median gross rent runs $785 a month, 44.2% below the national figure, or roughly $9,420 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 12.5% 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 1.7×, 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. 75.9% 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 26.8 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.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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.