Mescalero, NM population, income and ZIP codes

Mescalero CDP is a very small community in New Mexico, with 814 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #180 of 527 ranked by population — larger than 65% of them. The median age here is 44.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Mescalero CDP earn a median of $28,167 a year, 64.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 48% below the $54,029 median for the 153 New Mexico cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 40.3% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Mescalero CDP is valued at $48,300, 84.1% below the national figure and 75% below the $190,000 peer median, while median gross rent runs $282 a month, 79.9% below the national figure, or roughly $3,384 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 12% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 1.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 70.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 814 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Mescalero CDP against its county rather than against national figures.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.