Cave Junction, OR population, income and ZIP codes

Cave Junction city is a small town in Oregon, with 1,701 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #178 of 426 ranked by population — larger than 58% of them. The median age here is 41.7 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 Cave Junction city earn a median of $35,927 a year, 54.3% below the national figure of $78,538 and 51% below the $74,006 median for the 228 Oregon 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 42.2% 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 Cave Junction city is valued at $252,000, 16.9% below the national figure and 33% below the $377,700 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,076 a month, 23.5% below the national figure, or roughly $12,912 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 35.9% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 69.3% 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.

Home values sit at 7× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere.

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.