Households and income, in dated snapshots

2000 — 2024

The population divided into households, and what the households earned — three snapshots, each dated, none of them interchangeable: At the 2000 census the city's 107,789 people formed 42,908 households and 25,959 families; the median household income, measured on 1999 earnings, was $32,439, and per capita income $17,121. At the 2010 census the city counted 39,760 households — fewer households than in 2000, holding a smaller population at an average of 2.48 persons per household, with a median age of 33.3 years. The household count is the decline's quietest measure: where Fort Wayne's households multiplied through its annexation decades, South Bend's fell outright across the 2000s, houses emptying faster than the subdivisions at the city's edge could refill them — the vacancy crisis the next decade's housing programs, counted in the Government section, were built to answer.

The current snapshot is the American Community Survey's, and it is an estimate with margins, not a count: the ACS 2020–2024 figures give the city 41,282 households at 2.44 persons per household, a median household income of $55,786 (in 2024 dollars), per capita income of $30,791, a poverty rate of 20.8 percent, an owner-occupied rate of 60.2 percent and a median owner-occupied home value of $140,400. The nominal income figures are not adjusted for inflation and are printed as each survey published them — the honest comparisons across the snapshots are the structural ones: a city whose population in 2024's survey was roughly its 2000 size, whose households were slightly fewer and slightly smaller, and whose poverty rate remains the highest number in this section.

Sources:

1. U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 — South Bend city: 42,908 households, 25,959 families, median household income $32,439 (1999 dollars), per capita income $17,121 (Census 2000 Summary Files).
2. U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2010 — South Bend city: 39,760 households, average household size 2.48, median age 33.3.
3. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 (Census QuickFacts) — South Bend city: 41,282 households, 2.44 persons per household, median household income $55,786 (2024 dollars), per capita income $30,791, persons in poverty 20.8 percent, owner-occupied housing rate 60.2 percent, median value of owner-occupied units $140,400.