Coal Center, PA population, income and ZIP codes

Coal Center borough is a very small community in Pennsylvania, with 155 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1795 of 2,002 ranked by population — larger than 10% of them. The median age here is 32.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Coal Center borough earn a median of $39,050 a year, 50.3% below the national figure of $78,538 and 45% below the $71,118 median for the 982 Pennsylvania 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 10.3% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Coal Center borough is valued at $76,500, 74.8% below the national figure and 60% below the $193,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,011 a month, 28.1% below the national figure, or roughly $12,132 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 31.1% 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 2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 32.5% 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.

Coal Center borough is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 31.1% of median income while homes cost only 2× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. With 155 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Coal Center borough against its county rather than against national figures.

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.