Chester, WV population, income and ZIP codes

Chester city is a small town in West Virginia, with 2,302 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #71 of 439 ranked by population — larger than 84% of them. The median age here is 55.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 Chester city earn a median of $63,750 a year, 18.8% below the national figure of $78,538 and 20% above the $52,974 median for the 148 West Virginia cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 10.1% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Chester city is valued at $110,600, 63.5% below the national figure and 13% below the $127,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $686 a month, 51.2% below the national figure, or roughly $8,232 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 12.9% 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 1.7×, 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. 81.4% 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. 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 55.4 puts Chester city well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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.