Another notable thing is that Palm Desert is an extremely popular vacation destination. A significant portion of the population is seasonal. During the vacation season, the city experiences a large influx of people who take up residence in second homes they own in the area. As the vacation season ends, the population drops again, leaving behind a substantially quieter and smaller city.

The education level of Palm Desert citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 39.93% of adults in Palm Desert have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Palm Desert in 2022 was $55,369, which is upper middle income relative to California, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $221,476 for a family of four. However, Palm Desert contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Palm Desert is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Palm Desert home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Palm Desert residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Palm Desert also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 23.99% of the city鈥檚 residents. Important ancestries of people in Palm Desert include English, German, Irish, Italian, and Scottish.

Palm Desert also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 16.75%.

The most common language spoken in Palm Desert is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Tagalog.