City safety & data profile

PortageIN

Portage, IN is a 37K-resident city in Porter County with a median household income of $76,276.

Porter County, Indiana. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Portage, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Portage has a population larger than 71% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, and a median home value of $224,200.

Data updated 2026-09-04

37K
Population (place)
Top 29%
By size
$76,276
Median income (place)
$224,200
Median home (place)
11.6%
Poverty rate (place)
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The read on Portage

Portage posts a median household income higher than 45% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks.

Bottom 46%
by median income, US cities

Where Portage income ranks nationally

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

$76,276 Bottom 45% higher than 45% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles

Portage $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 IN

Population among 79 IN places with 10,000+ residents and ACS income on Areazine. Tooltip shows the income rank in the same pool.

residents

What this shows Indianapolis is the largest IN city on this list; Zionsville leads median income.

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

Highest median incomes in IN

Median household income among the same 79-city pool. Tooltip shows the population rank.

median

What this shows Zionsville posts the highest place-level median income in IN; Indianapolis is largest by headcount.

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

The quick read

Reading Portage, IN beyond the headline numbers

Portage sits inside Porter County, Indiana, at roughly 41.58°N, -87.18°W. Population 36,738, $76,276 median household income. Median home value $224,200, median rent $1,231. Poverty rate 11.6%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.

Poverty in Portage, IN stands at 11.6%, above the midpoint of reporting cities. A median income can look comfortable while a share this size sits well beneath it, which is why the two figures belong together.

Housing is inexpensive against local pay -- the median home in Portage runs about 2.9 years of median household income, in the cheapest quarter of reporting cities.

Only 5.5% of Portage workers report working from home, the lowest quarter of reporting cities -- an economy still built around showing up somewhere.

Among the CDC measures on this page, obesity departs furthest from its peer median: 42.6% in Portage, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,759 cities reporting that measure.

Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Portage 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)
36,738
Portage · Census Place
Median Income (place)
$76,276
-15% vs avg
Median Home Value (place)
$224,200
-46% vs avg
Median Age (place)
39.8
years · ACS place

10-Year Trends 2013–2024

County-level trend (Porter County): Portage'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
175K+6%
Median Income
$87,972+40%
Median Home Value
$281,500+70%
Poverty Rate
9.6%-8%
Unemployment
4.7%-46%

Economics

Economics indicators for Portage, IN
IndicatorValue
Median Rent
$1,231/mo
Poverty Rate
11.6% -6% vs avg
Unemployment 7.4%
Bachelor's Degree+ 18.4%
Work From Home 5.5%
Public Transit 1%

Population

White 73.1%
African American 10%
Asian 1.2%

Health Profile 15 measures

Health Indicators

Obesity
42.6%
Short Sleep Duration
39.9%
High Blood Pressure
39.5%
Physical Inactivity
29.6%
Frequent Mental Distress
18.3%
Current Smoking
17.1%
Binge Drinking
15.3%
Frequent Physical Distress
14.9%
Diabetes
13.8%
Current Asthma
11.6%

Preventive Care

Dental Visit 58.7%
Annual Checkup 79.1%

Other Measures

Lack of Health Insurance
10.8%
Coronary Heart Disease
6.8%
Stroke
3.6%

What alerts and safety updates affect Portage?

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

City alert dispatch desk

Sheet IN-PORTAGE-IN · Portage

Portage: 11 tagged alerts; lead category NWS weather alert.

  • VOL-ACTIVE 11 on record
  • WX-LED 91% weather
  • DESK-MIX NOAA
  • PHOTO-FINISH ≈ Albuquerque

Tagged alert mix: Portage

Published notices carrying this city slug or location tag

Value

What this shows 11 tagged notices on record for Portage.

Source Areazine publication corpus As of Live tagged feed

Nearest tagged-volume peer: Albuquerque, NM (10 tagged · Δ1)

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

Cities with a similar tagged alert volume 4

Nearest published-notice counts on Areazine (11 tagged here), a feed-density peer set, not an ACS demographic match.

Read with this city profile

Frequently Asked Questions 5

What is the population of Portage, IN?
Portage, IN has a population of 36,738 people, located in Porter County, Indiana.
What is the median household income in Portage?
The median household income in Portage, IN is $76,276 per year, per the U.S. Census ACS. The poverty rate is 11.6%.
What is the median home value in Portage?
The median home value in Portage, IN is $224,200. Median rent is $1,231/month.
What are the top health concerns in Portage?
The top health indicators in Portage include Obesity (42.6%), Short Sleep Duration (39.9%), High Blood Pressure (39.5%). Data from CDC PLACES.
What is the median age in Portage?
The median age in Portage, IN is 39.8 years. 18.4% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Nationwide cities with similar poverty or income 8

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

Similar poverty rate

Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside IN (11.6% here).

Similar median income

Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside IN ($76,276 here).

Compare Portage 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

Using Portage'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 Portage 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 Portage against Indiana peers on any ranking lens. Explore Indiana

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 (Porter 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.