Columbus, NE population, income and ZIP codes

Columbus city is a mid-size town in Nebraska, with 24,188 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #9 of 593 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 37.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Columbus city earn a median of $67,212 a year, 14.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and within a couple of points of 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 9.7% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Columbus city is valued at $198,900, 34.4% below the national figure and 23% above the $161,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $871 a month, 38.1% below the national figure, or roughly $10,452 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 15.6% 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 3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 66.8% 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.

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.