West Columbia, SC population, income and ZIP codes

West Columbia city is a mid-size town in South Carolina, with 17,723 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #35 of 475 ranked by population — larger than 92% of them. The median age here is 37.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in West Columbia city earn a median of $54,152 a year, 31% below the national figure of $78,538 and within a couple of points of 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 14.1% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in West Columbia city is valued at $186,200, 38.6% below the national figure and 5% above the $177,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,092 a month, 22.3% below the national figure, or roughly $13,104 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 24.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 56.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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.