Kearney, NE population, income and ZIP codes

Kearney city is a small city in Nebraska, with 34,024 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #5 of 593 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 32.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Kearney city earn a median of $69,790 a year, 11.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 4% above the $67,419 median for the 119 Nebraska 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 13.9% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Kearney city is valued at $235,800, 22.3% below the national figure and 46% above the $161,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $922 a month, 34.4% below the national figure, or roughly $11,064 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 15.9% 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 3.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 59.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

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.