City safety & data profile

MercedCA

Merced, CA is a 82K-resident city in Merced County with a median household income of $63,122.

Merced County, California. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Merced, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Merced has a population larger than 90% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, a median home value of $372,600, and 1 hospital serving the surrounding area.

Data updated 2026-09-04

82K
Population (place)
Top 10%
By size
$63,122
Median income (place)
$372,600
Median home (place)
23.9%
Poverty rate (place)
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The read on Merced

Merced posts a median household income higher than 27% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks, where 1 hospital serves the Merced area.

Bottom 28%
by median income, US cities
1
hospital in & near Merced

Where Merced income ranks nationally

Median household income vs. every place Areazine profiles (place-level ACS)

$63,122 Bottom 27% higher than 27% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles

Merced $0 $260,000 every profiled place, bucketed by value

Each bar is a $20K-wide band; taller bars hold more places Areazine profiles. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) · 2024 ACS 5-year

Largest cities in CA

Population among 482 CA places with 10,000+ residents and ACS income on Areazine. Tooltip shows the income rank in the same pool.

residents

What this shows Los Angeles is the largest CA city on this list; Alamo leads median income.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

Highest median incomes in CA

Median household income among the same 482-city pool. Tooltip shows the population rank.

median

What this shows Alamo posts the highest place-level median income in CA; Los Angeles is largest by headcount.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

The quick read

Reading Merced, CA beyond the headline numbers

Merced sits inside Merced County, California, at roughly 37.30°N, -120.48°W. Population 82,436, $63,122 median household income. Median home value $372,600, median rent $1,393. Poverty rate 23.9%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.

1 hospital in/around Merced, 3/5 avg rating, 1 with an ER.

23.9% of Merced, CA residents live below the poverty line, placing it in the hardest-hit quarter of reporting cities. Read every median on this page against that: half the households are above it, and a large minority are far below.

The median home in Merced costs around 5.9 times what a median household earns in a year -- the most expensive quarter of reporting cities, and far enough ahead of local pay that ownership is largely closed to median earners.

Remote work covers 8.4% of Merced workers, under the midpoint for reporting cities.

Among the CDC measures on this page, lack of health insurance departs furthest from its peer median: 17.1% in Merced, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,759 cities reporting that measure.

Merced's median age is 30 years, in the youngest quarter of reporting cities.

Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Merced from FEMA, NOAA, FDA, and CPSC. Economic comparison bars use the unweighted average across tracked Census places with a reported value, not a household-weighted national median.

Population (place)
82,436
Merced · Census Place
Median Income (place)
$63,122
-29% vs avg
Median Home Value (place)
$372,600
-10% vs avg
Median Age (place)
30
years · ACS place

10-Year Trends 2013–2024

County-level trend (Merced County): Merced's own historical series isn't separately published by the Census Bureau, so these year-over-year figures track the surrounding county, not the city alone.

20132024
Population
290K+12%
Median Income
$65,510+54%
Median Home Value
$391,800+168%
Poverty Rate
19.1%-25%
Unemployment
10.5%-41%

Economics

Economics indicators for Merced, CA
IndicatorValue
Median Rent
$1,393/mo
Poverty Rate
23.9% +93% vs avg
Unemployment 11.3%
Bachelor's Degree+ 20.2%
Work From Home 8.4%
Public Transit 0.8%

Population

White 28.9%
African American 5%
Asian 9.6%

Health Profile 15 measures

Health Indicators

Short Sleep Duration
38.8%
Obesity
33.7%
Physical Inactivity
33.1%
High Blood Pressure
31.3%
Frequent Mental Distress
19.6%
Lack of Health Insurance
17.1%
Frequent Physical Distress
16.1%
Binge Drinking
15.7%
Current Smoking
14.6%
Diabetes
13%

Preventive Care

Dental Visit 51.9%
Annual Checkup 69.3%

Other Measures

Current Asthma
10.1%
Coronary Heart Disease
6.1%
Stroke
3.5%

Hospitals 1 total

Rating Distribution
★★★★★
0
★★★★
0
★★★
1
★★
0
★
0
Average Rating
3/5
Total Hospitals
1
With ER
1
MERCY MEDICAL CENTER
MERCED · Acute Care Hospitals · ER
★★★☆☆

What alerts and safety updates affect Merced?

No area-tagged alerts are on record for Merced right now. New federal and counterpart-agency notices still land in the site feed as agencies publish them.

City alert dispatch desk

Sheet CA-MERCED · Merced

Merced: 1 tagged alert; lead category NWS weather alert.

  • VOL-TRACE 1 on record
  • WX-LED 100% weather
  • DESK-MIX NOAA
  • PHOTO-FINISH ≈ Houston

Tagged alert mix: Merced

Published notices carrying this city slug or location tag

Value

What this shows 1 tagged notice on record for Merced.

Source Areazine publication corpus As of Live tagged feed

Nearest tagged-volume peer: Houston, TX (1 tagged · Δ0)

Counts reflect published articles tagged to Merced; untagged NOAA county warnings may still appear in the site feed. Browse California state hubs · Methodology

Cities with a similar tagged alert volume 4

Nearest published-notice counts on Areazine (1 tagged here), a feed-density peer set, not an ACS demographic match.

Houston, TX 1 alerts Washington, DC 1 alerts Nashville, TN 1 alerts Portland, OR 1 alerts

Read with this city profile

Understanding Weather Alerts

Watch vs warning vs advisory, how NOAA labels map to action
All safety guides →

Frequently Asked Questions 6

What is the population of Merced, CA? ▼
Merced, CA has a population of 82,436 people, located in Merced County, California.
What is the median household income in Merced? ▼
The median household income in Merced, CA is $63,122 per year, per the U.S. Census ACS. The poverty rate is 23.9%.
What is the median home value in Merced? ▼
The median home value in Merced, CA is $372,600. Median rent is $1,393/month.
What are the top health concerns in Merced? ▼
The top health indicators in Merced include Short Sleep Duration (38.8%), Obesity (33.7%), Physical Inactivity (33.1%). Data from CDC PLACES.
How many hospitals are in Merced? ▼
Merced has 1 hospital with an average rating of 3/5 stars. 1 have emergency departments.
What is the median age in Merced? ▼
The median age in Merced, CA is 30 years. 20.2% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Nationwide cities with similar poverty or income 8

Two ACS-derived peer sets for Merced, both outside California so the neighborhoods are not the geographic nearby list below.

Similar poverty rate

Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside CA (23.9% here).

New Haven, CT 23.9% Huntsville, TX 23.9% Lima, OH 23.9% Uvalde, TX 23.9%

Similar median income

Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside CA ($63,122 here).

Mountain Home, ID $63,125 Cocoa, FL $63,105 Zion, IL $63,104 Conyers, GA $63,140

Compare Merced with another city

Pick a second U.S. city to open a side-by-side profile on population, income, health, and hospitals, the same federal datasets as this page.

Quick picks:

Nearby Cities 8

Atwater, CA 29K Winton, CA 11K Livingston, CA 14K Chowchilla, CA 19K Delhi, CA 11K Turlock, CA 72K Los Banos, CA 37K Newman, CA 11K
All cities in California → Compare Merced vs Atwater → All comparisons → Browse all cities

Using Merced's profile

Use this as a starting research checklist, not a verdict on whether to live here.

  • Check live recalls, weather and hazard alerts scoped to the Merced area before relying on national headlines. Check your area
  • Read the poverty rate alongside the income figure, two places with the same median can have very different realities.
  • Compare Merced against California peers on any ranking lens. Explore California

Population and economics (income, home value, poverty, education) are place-level U.S. Census ACS; health is CDC PLACES; hospital counts reflect facilities in and around the city. County-level trends are labeled when shown.

Data Sources

All data on this page comes from official U.S. government sources. Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates, place geography). Health data from the CDC PLACES program (2023). Hospital ratings from CMS Hospital Compare (2024). Climate data from NOAA. Education data from NCES. Cost of living from Bureau of Economic Analysis. Crime statistics, where referenced on Areazine, originate from the FBI Crime Data Explorer. Housing market figures referenced on Areazine come from HUD Fair Market Rents. Census economics and population are at place geography; some health and hospital indicators are reported at the county level (Merced County) where that is the smallest published unit.

Every figure on Areazine is published directly from official U.S. government sources, no number is typed in by an editor. City demographic and health figures are compiled directly from U.S. Census (place-level ACS), CDC, and CMS releases, updated quarterly within 30 days of upstream release. County-level trends are labeled when shown. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026.