Bethune, SC population, income and ZIP codes

Bethune town is a very small community in South Carolina, with 421 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #352 of 475 ranked by population — larger than 25% of them. The median age here is 38 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger 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 Bethune town earn a median of $42,656 a year, 45.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 20% below the $53,071 median for the 263 South Carolina cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 35.2% 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 Bethune town is valued at $96,400, 68.2% below the national figure and 46% below the $177,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,644 a month, 16.9% above the national figure, or roughly $19,728 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 46.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is severely stretched — a median-income renter clears the cost-burden line by a wide margin before utilities beyond the gross-rent definition. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.3×, 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. 67.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

Bethune town is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 46.2% of median income while homes cost only 2.3× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. With 421 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Bethune town against its county rather than against national figures.

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.