Ruth, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Ruth town is a very small community in North Carolina, with 526 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #580 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 25% of them. The median age here is 41.6 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 Ruth town earn a median of $48,125 a year, 38.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 21% below the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina 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 29.4% 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 Ruth town is valued at $122,000, 59.8% below the national figure and 44% below the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $707 a month, 49.7% below the national figure, or roughly $8,484 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17.6% 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 2.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 76.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

With 526 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Ruth town against its county rather than against national figures.

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.