ZIP 23897

What ZIP 23897 actually tells you, and what it doesn't

The 23897 ZIP Code Tabulation Area has a population of 804 and a median household income of $70,486. Against the other tabulation areas in this dataset, it places as follows.

Housing is cheap here relative to local earnings. A home at the median costs about 1.2 years of a median household's gross income, which puts 23897 in the least expensive quarter of the 29,491 tabulation areas that report both figures. Areas in this range are usually either far from a major job centre or carrying housing stock that local wages have caught up with.

Median rent works out to about 18% of median household income, above the midpoint for reporting areas though still short of the 30% cost-burden line. Note that this compares two medians, not the same households: renters here typically earn less than the ZCTA-wide median, so their real share is higher.

Half the residents are under 35.1, young enough to place 23897 in the youngest quarter of the 32,853 areas reporting an age. Campuses, barracks, and dense rental districts dominate this end of the range, and where that is the cause the income and poverty figures describe students rather than settled households.

ZCTAs approximate USPS ZIP codes rather than matching them, and these are 5-year ACS estimates, so they trail current conditions.