Eau Claire, WI population, income and ZIP codes

Eau Claire city is a small city in Wisconsin, with 69,274 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #8 of 807 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 33 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Eau Claire city earn a median of $65,369 a year, 16.8% below the national figure of $78,538 and 12% below the $73,880 median for the 395 Wisconsin 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 14.2% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Eau Claire city is valued at $228,000, 24.9% below the national figure and 8% above the $211,900 peer median, while median gross rent runs $971 a month, 30.9% below the national figure, or roughly $11,652 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17.8% 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 3.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 55.4% 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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.