Clay Center, NE population, income and ZIP codes

Clay Center city is a very small community in Nebraska, with 750 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #156 of 593 ranked by population — larger than 73% of them. The median age here is 39.7 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 Clay Center city earn a median of $75,833 a year, 3.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 12% above the $67,419 median for the 119 Nebraska 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 2.9% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Clay Center city is valued at $148,300, 51.1% below the national figure and 8% below the $161,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $620 a month, 55.9% below the national figure, or roughly $7,440 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 9.8% 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. 82.1% 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 750 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Clay Center 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.