Watson, MN population, income and ZIP codes

Watson city is a very small community in Minnesota, with 189 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #702 of 914 ranked by population — larger than 23% of them. The median age here is 44.7 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 Watson city earn a median of $38,958 a year, 50.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 48% 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 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 Watson city is valued at $66,500, 78.1% below the national figure and 72% below the $240,400 peer median, while median gross rent runs $706 a month, 49.8% below the national figure, or roughly $8,472 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 21.7% 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 1.7×, 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. 71.1% 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.

With 189 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Watson 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.