Ruby, SC population, income and ZIP codes

Ruby town is a very small community in South Carolina, with 244 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #392 of 475 ranked by population — larger than 17% of them. The median age here is 44 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 Ruby town earn a median of $49,167 a year, 37.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 7% below the $53,071 median for the 263 South 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 15.6% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Ruby town is valued at $108,700, 64.2% below the national figure and 39% below the $177,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $750 a month, 46.7% below the national figure, or roughly $9,000 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.3% 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 2.2×, 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. 84.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 244 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Ruby town 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.