Kalamazoo, MI population, income and ZIP codes

Kalamazoo city is a small city in Michigan, with 73,132 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #16 of 745 ranked by population — larger than 97% 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 size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Kalamazoo city earn a median of $48,965 a year, 37.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 21% 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 27% 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 Kalamazoo city is valued at $164,500, 45.8% below the national figure and within a couple of points of the $166,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,031 a month, 26.7% below the national figure, or roughly $12,372 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25.3% 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 3.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 42.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. 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.

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.