Jersey City, NJ population, income and ZIP codes

Jersey City city is a mid-size city in New Jersey, with 289,691 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #2 of 700 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 34.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Jersey City city earn a median of $94,813 a year, 20.7% above the national figure of $78,538 and 11% below the $106,926 median for the 543 New Jersey 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 15.6% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Jersey City city is valued at $534,500, 76.2% above the national figure and 30% above the $412,500 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,902 a month, 35.3% above the national figure, or roughly $22,824 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 28.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Median income runs above the national figure while poverty also runs above it — a split distribution, not a uniformly comfortable place. Averages hide that; the two numbers together do not.

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.