Spruce Pine, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Spruce Pine town is a small town in North Carolina, with 2,381 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #311 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 60% of them. The median age here is 46.1 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 Spruce Pine town earn a median of $47,583 a year, 39.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 22% below the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina 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 18.2% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Spruce Pine town is valued at $202,300, 33.3% below the national figure and 8% below the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $735 a month, 47.7% below the national figure, or roughly $8,820 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.5% 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 4.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 66.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. 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.

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.