Poverty — Sebastian, Florida

In Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024 estimates, 2,646 of the 26,091 Sebastian residents whose poverty status was determined lived below the poverty line, a rate of 10.1 percent.

The ACS 2020-2024 table S1701 for Sebastian city attaches a margin of error of 3.2 points to that rate, which puts the plausible range for Sebastian between 6.9 and 13.3 percent. The Indian River County rate is 11.1 percent, plus or minus 1.0, and the statewide Florida rate is 12.6 percent. Sebastian's range takes in both of those figures, so the city's lower point estimate is not a statistically firm difference from either the county or the state. What the table does show clearly is how unevenly the 2,646 people are spread across ages and household types, which the sections below break out.

Children are the Sebastian age group most likely to be poor: 640 of 3,171 residents under 18, or 20.2 percent, lived below the line in ACS 2020-2024, more than twice the 8.2 percent rate for adults 18 to 64.

The child figure needs care. The Sebastian S1701 table gives it a margin of error of 8.9 points, a range of 11.3 to 29.1 percent, and that range includes the Indian River County child rate of 16.2 percent. The survey sample of Sebastian children is small, so the gap with the county is a point estimate, not a settled finding. Within the under-18 group, school-age Sebastian children from 5 to 17 show a rate of 22.6 percent, and children under 5 show 13.7 percent, each with a margin above 11 points.

Older residents sit near the citywide rate. Of the 9,636 Sebastian residents age 65 and over, 912 were below the line, or 9.5 percent, a little above the county's 8.3 percent and below the Florida rate of 11.8 percent for people 65 and over. Put the three age groups together and the Sebastian count of 2,646 splits into 640 children (24.2 percent, from 640 divided by 2,646), 1,094 adults of working age (41.3 percent) and 912 seniors (34.5 percent). Seniors make up 36.9 percent of everyone measured in Sebastian (9,636 divided by 26,091), so their share of the poor is slightly smaller than their share of the city.

Of the main family types in Sebastian, families headed by a woman with no spouse present and children under 18 are the most often poor, at 40.9 percent of 328 such families in ACS 2020-2024.

That rate comes from the ACS 2020-2024 table S1702 for Sebastian city and carries a margin of error of 24.4 points, the widest on this page, so it supports only a broad conclusion: these households are far more exposed than married couples. Across all 7,170 Sebastian families the rate is 7.4 percent. Among the 5,790 married-couple families it is 4.2 percent, and among married couples raising children it is 4.1 percent. The comparable figure for female-householder families with children is 34.7 percent in Indian River County and 29.4 percent in Florida.

Housing tenure separates Sebastian families as well. Of the 1,059 families who rent, 15.9 percent were poor, against 5.9 percent of the 6,111 families who own their home. Families whose householder is 65 or older, 2,919 of them in Sebastian, had a rate of 5.5 percent. Families with a householder who worked full time all year had a rate of 0.0 percent, with a margin of 2.2 points, while the 2,363 families with no worker at all had a rate of 13.6 percent.

Nearly always: only 1.0 percent of Sebastian residents age 16 and over who worked full time year-round were poor in ACS 2020-2024, against 15.8 percent of those who did not work at all.

Part-time or part-year work left 4.6 percent of Sebastian workers in that group below the line, well under the county rate of 11.2 percent and the state rate of 14.9 percent for the same group. Of the 792 people unemployed and looking for work in Sebastian, 19.4 percent were poor, a figure with a margin of 10.1 points. For the city's whole civilian labor force the rate was 3.9 percent.

The arithmetic shows where Sebastian poverty is concentrated: 1,830 of the 2,124 poor residents age 16 and over did not work in the prior 12 months, which is 86.2 percent (1,830 divided by 2,124), according to the Sebastian S1701 work experience rows. In the same table, 11,591 of the 23,246 Sebastian residents age 16 and over did not work. Schooling also tracks with the rate: 12.4 percent of Sebastian adults 25 and over whose highest level was a high school diploma were poor, against 4.5 percent of those with a bachelor's degree or higher.

About 1,478 Sebastian residents, 5.7 percent of those measured, had incomes under half the poverty line in ACS 2020-2024, and 6,507, about one in four, were below twice the line.

Each share in the table is a published count divided by the people measured: 26,091 in Sebastian, 165,290 in Indian River County and 21,946,166 in Florida. For example, 6,507 divided by 26,091 gives 24.9 percent. The band just above the line matters for local aid, because many programs set eligibility at a multiple of the federal guidelines: 4,434 Sebastian residents fell under 150 percent of the threshold, which leaves 1,788 people (4,434 minus 2,646) who were not counted as poor but sat within half a threshold of it. Programs that serve Sebastian households are listed on the Sebastian emergency financial assistance guide.

Sebastian residents who do not live with relatives, called unrelated individuals in the S1701 table, are the other group with a high rate: 1,110 of 5,872, or 18.9 percent. Their mean income deficit, the average gap between a poor unrelated individual's income and the threshold, was $8,666 in Sebastian.

Sebastian's poverty rate slipped from 12.1 percent in ACS 2015-2019 to 10.1 percent in ACS 2020-2024, but the two estimates' error ranges overlap, so the decline is not statistically clear.

The Census Bureau's guidance on comparing ACS data says 5-year estimates should be compared only when the periods do not overlap, and these two Sebastian periods do not. The ACS 2015-2019 table for Sebastian puts the overall rate at 12.1 percent with a margin of 2.8 points, a range of 9.3 to 14.9 percent, which overlaps the newer range of 6.9 to 13.3 percent. The working-age drop from 12.8 to 8.2 percent is the largest move, yet its ranges (9.7 to 15.9 and 4.8 to 11.6) also touch. The senior rate rose from 7.1 to 9.5 percent and the child rate barely moved, both within sampling error for a city of Sebastian's size.

Sebastian households are measured against the same national poverty thresholds used everywhere in the United States, which vary by family size and the ages of members but not by place, so Indian River County housing costs play no part.

The Census Bureau's explanation of its poverty measures says that if a family's total income is less than the family's threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty. There are 48 possible thresholds, updated each year for inflation with the Consumer Price Index. The income counted is money income before taxes, including earnings, Social Security, pensions and interest, while capital gains, tax credits and noncash benefits such as public housing and food stamps are left out. A Sebastian retiree with Social Security and a pension is therefore judged on that cash income alone.

The dollar figures that agencies use to decide who qualifies for help are a different measure, the HHS poverty guidelines. The 2026 HHS poverty guidelines for the 48 contiguous states, which include Florida and therefore Sebastian, are $15,960 for one person, $21,640 for two and $33,000 for a family of four, plus $5,680 for each person beyond eight. HHS calls the guidelines a simplification of the thresholds for administrative use and says the phrase federal poverty level is ambiguous. The Sebastian rates on this page come from the thresholds, not the guidelines.

Last verified: October 12, 2026, against the Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024 tables S1701 and S1702 for Sebastian city, Indian River County and Florida, the ACS 2015-2019 table S1701 for Sebastian city, and the HHS 2026 poverty guidelines page.