Poplar, MT population, income and ZIP codes

Poplar city is a very small community in Montana, with 655 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #131 of 497 ranked by population — larger than 73% of them. The median age here is 28.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Poplar city earn a median of $45,104 a year, 42.6% below the national figure of $78,538 and 28% below the $62,992 median for the 94 Montana 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 33.3% 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 Poplar city is valued at $91,700, 69.8% below the national figure and 63% below the $250,900 peer median, while median gross rent runs $680 a month, 51.6% below the national figure, or roughly $8,160 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.1% 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 2×, 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. 78.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. 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.

A median age of 28.7 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address. With 655 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Poplar 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.