Plainfield, NJ population, income and ZIP codes

Plainfield city is a small city in New Jersey, with 54,515 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #18 of 700 ranked by population — larger than 97% of them. The median age here is 33 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 Plainfield city earn a median of $80,334 a year, 2.3% above the national figure of $78,538 and 25% below the $106,926 median for the 543 New Jersey 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 17.1% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Plainfield city is valued at $383,300, 26.3% above the national figure and 7% below the $412,500 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,673 a month, 19% above the national figure, or roughly $20,076 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25% 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 4.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 42.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. 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.

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.

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.