Big Rapids, MI population, income and ZIP codes

Big Rapids city is a mid-size town in Michigan, with 7,847 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #128 of 745 ranked by population — larger than 82% of them. The median age here is 23 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Big Rapids city earn a median of $40,197 a year, 48.8% below the national figure of $78,538 and 35% below the $61,715 median for the 438 Michigan 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 35.4% 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 Big Rapids city is valued at $134,200, 55.8% below the national figure and 19% below the $166,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $815 a month, 42% below the national figure, or roughly $9,780 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.3% 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 3.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 40.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. 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 23 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.