Ruthton, MN population, income and ZIP codes

Ruthton city is a very small community in Minnesota, with 180 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #716 of 914 ranked by population — larger than 21% of them. The median age here is 46.8 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 Ruthton city earn a median of $40,000 a year, 49.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 47% below the $75,469 median for the 361 Minnesota cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 20.8% 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 Ruthton city is valued at $54,100, 82.2% below the national figure and 77% below the $240,400 peer median, while median gross rent runs $775 a month, 44.9% below the national figure, or roughly $9,300 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 23.3% 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 1.4×, 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. 83.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. 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.

With 180 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Ruthton city against its county rather than against national figures.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.