Beckley, WV population, income and ZIP codes

Beckley city is a mid-size town in West Virginia, with 16,977 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #9 of 439 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 39 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 Beckley city earn a median of $39,939 a year, 49.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 25% below the $52,974 median for the 148 West Virginia 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 27% 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 Beckley city is valued at $148,800, 51% below the national figure and 17% above the $127,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $867 a month, 38.3% below the national figure, or roughly $10,404 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 26% 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 3.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 53.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

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.