Sheldon, MO population, income and ZIP codes

Sheldon city is a very small community in Missouri, with 362 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #600 of 1,082 ranked by population — larger than 44% of them. The median age here is 45.1 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 Sheldon city earn a median of $42,386 a year, 46% below the national figure of $78,538 and 24% below the $55,543 median for the 374 Missouri 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 29.8% 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 Sheldon city is valued at $76,700, 74.7% below the national figure and 50% below the $152,400 peer median, while median gross rent runs $601 a month, 57.3% below the national figure, or roughly $7,212 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17% 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 1.8×, 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. 43.6% 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.

With 362 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Sheldon city against its county rather than against national figures.

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.