Ellensburg, WA population, income and ZIP codes

Ellensburg city is a mid-size town in Washington, with 18,913 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #77 of 639 ranked by population — larger than 88% of them. The median age here is 26.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Ellensburg city earn a median of $49,888 a year, 36.5% below the national figure of $78,538 and 45% below the $90,592 median for the 393 Washington 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 21% 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 Ellensburg city is valued at $357,800, 17.9% above the national figure and 24% below the $468,400 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,258 a month, 10.5% below the national figure, or roughly $15,096 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 30.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 7.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 37.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

Home values sit at 7.2× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere. A median age of 26.7 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.

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.