Rochester, NY population, income and ZIP codes

Rochester city is a mid-size city in New York, with 209,720 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #3 of 1,292 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 33.5 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 Rochester city earn a median of $46,628 a year, 40.6% below the national figure of $78,538 and 49% below the $91,806 median for the 847 New York 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 26.6% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Rochester city is valued at $120,600, 60.3% below the national figure and 62% below the $315,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,039 a month, 26.1% below the national figure, or roughly $12,468 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 26.7% 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 2.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 37.2% 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.

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.