Polk, PA population, income and ZIP codes

Polk borough is a very small community in Pennsylvania, with 692 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1181 of 2,002 ranked by population — larger than 41% of them. The median age here is 53.5 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 Polk borough earn a median of $44,250 a year, 43.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 38% 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 35% 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 Polk borough is valued at $87,500, 71.2% below the national figure and 55% below the $193,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $689 a month, 51% below the national figure, or roughly $8,268 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.7% 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×, 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. 77% 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.

A median age of 53.5 puts Polk borough well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages. With 692 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Polk borough 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.