West Branch, MI population, income and ZIP codes

West Branch city is a small town in Michigan, with 2,177 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #293 of 745 ranked by population — larger than 60% of them. The median age here is 39.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 West Branch city earn a median of $40,078 a year, 49% 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 24.2% 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 West Branch city is valued at $114,300, 62.3% below the national figure and 31% below the $166,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $847 a month, 39.8% below the national figure, or roughly $10,164 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25.4% 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 2.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 37.5% 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.

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.