Wakpala, SD population, income and ZIP codes

Wakpala CDP is a very small community in South Dakota, with 159 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #262 of 485 ranked by population — larger than 46% of them. The median age here is 26.4 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 Wakpala CDP earn a median of $22,500 a year, 71.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 66% below the $65,500 median for the 79 South Dakota 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 86.2% 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 Wakpala CDP is valued at not published, while median gross rent runs $433 a month, 69.2% below the national figure, or roughly $5,196 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 23.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. 28.6% 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.

A median age of 26.4 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address. With 159 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Wakpala CDP against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld home value for Wakpala CDP because the sample was too thin to publish at this geography. Those values were suppressed at the source, not lost in our dataset, and we do not model a replacement. Everything else on this page comes straight from the ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year tables.