Onaway, MI population, income and ZIP codes

Onaway city is a very small community in Michigan, with 701 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #495 of 745 ranked by population — larger than 33% of them. The median age here is 51.8 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 Onaway city earn a median of $40,159 a year, 48.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 35% below the $61,715 median for the 438 Michigan 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 21.7% 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 Onaway city is valued at $59,100, 80.5% below the national figure and 64% below the $166,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $600 a month, 57.3% below the national figure, or roughly $7,200 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17.9% 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 1.5×, 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. 65.8% 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.

A median age of 51.8 puts Onaway city well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages. With 701 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Onaway city against its county rather than against national figures.

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.