West Virginia · FIPS 54015
Clay ZIP codes — Clay County, West Virginia
Quick answer
Clay County is home to 7,946 residents with a median household income of $42,790 and a median home value of $107,100. 79% of households own their home and 24.9% of residents live below the poverty line. Looking for a Clay ZIP code? 12 ZIP code areas fall inside Clay County, West Virginia, listed in full below.
- Population
- 7,946Clay County residents
- Median household income
- $42,790Past 12 months, inflation adjusted
- Median home value
- $107,100Owner-occupied units
- Median gross rent
- $589Rent plus utilities, monthly
- Median age
- 45.3 yrsAll residents
- Homeownership rate
- 79%Owner-occupied households
Clay County, WV in context
How this area compares with national benchmarks.
Clay County is a mid-size town in West Virginia, with 7,946 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 45.3 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.
Households in Clay County earn a median of $42,790 a year, 45.5% below the national figure of $78,538. 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 24.9% 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 Clay County is valued at $107,100, 64.7% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $589 a month, 58.1% below the national figure, or roughly $7,068 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.5% 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 2.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 79% 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.
No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.
ZIP codes in Clay County
ZIP code tabulation areas whose land area falls mostly in Clay County.
How to read this page
What these estimates cover.
Figures are five-year rolling averages from the American Community Survey, not single-year counts, so they describe conditions across 2019-2023 ACS 5-year rather than a single date. Median home value covers owner-occupied units as valued by their owners, and median gross rent includes utilities the renter pays. Small counties carry wide margins of error; treat single-dollar differences between neighbouring counties as noise.
Source: US Census Bureau, ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates · rates as published for 2019-2023 ACS 5-year
Cities and towns in West Virginia
Largest Census places in West Virginia by population.
- Charleston city 47,918
- Huntington city 46,189
- Morgantown city 30,273
- Parkersburg city 29,461
- Wheeling city 26,670
- Martinsburg city 18,805
- Weirton city 18,785
- Fairmont city 18,303
- Beckley city 16,977
- Clarksburg city 15,829
- Teays Valley CDP 13,961
- South Charleston city 13,594
Nearby counties
Other counties in West Virginia.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about this area.
- What is the population of Clay County?
- Clay County has 7,946 residents on Census ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates.
- What is the median household income in Clay County?
- Median household income in Clay County is $42,790 a year, 45.5% below the national figure of $78,538.
- How much does it cost to rent or buy in Clay County?
- Median gross rent is $589 a month and the median home value is $107,100, so rent absorbs about 16.5% of median household income.
- Is Clay County affordable compared with the rest of the US?
- Homes cost about 2.5× the local median income here versus roughly 3.9× nationally, so Clay County is more affordable to buy in than the typical US market, and rent takes 16.5% of median income against the 30% cost-burden line.
- How current is this Clay County data?
- All figures come from the US Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year five-year estimates. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.