Sierra ZIP codes — Sierra County, California

Sierra County is a small town in California, with 2,731 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 56 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 Sierra County earn a median of $60,000 a year, 23.6% below the national figure of $78,538. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 12.3% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Sierra County is valued at $334,100, 10.1% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,181 a month, 16% below the national figure, or roughly $14,172 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 23.6% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 78.3% 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.

A median age of 56 puts Sierra County well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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.