Salem, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Salem CDP is a small town in North Carolina, with 2,035 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #337 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 56% of them. The median age here is 42.8 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 Salem CDP earn a median of $66,653 a year, 15.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 9% above the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 19.9% 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 Salem CDP is valued at $159,300, 47.5% below the national figure and 28% below the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $772 a month, 45.1% below the national figure, or roughly $9,264 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 13.9% 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 2.4×, 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. 74.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

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.