Nelson, NE population, income and ZIP codes

Nelson city is a very small community in Nebraska, with 478 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #216 of 593 ranked by population — larger than 63% of them. The median age here is 58.4 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 Nelson city earn a median of $54,408 a year, 30.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 19% below the $67,419 median for the 119 Nebraska cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 7.8% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Nelson city is valued at $72,900, 76% below the national figure and 55% 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 13.7% 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 1.3×, 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. 89% 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. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 58.4 puts Nelson city well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages. With 478 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Nelson city against its county rather than against national figures.

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.