ZIP code 35214

ZIP 35214 is a mid-size town in Jefferson County, Alabama, with 16,495 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #101 of 656 ranked by population — larger than 84% of them. The median age here is 45.1 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 ZIP 35214 earn a median of $55,478 a year, 29.4% 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 21.4% 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 ZIP 35214 is valued at $149,600, 50.7% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $987 a month, 29.8% below the national figure, or roughly $11,844 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 21.3% 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 2.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 66.2% 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.

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.

ZIP 35214 is tabulated inside Jefferson County, Alabama, one of 54 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 656 across Alabama. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. County assignment on this page follows the largest share of the ZIP's land area, which matters where a delivery route crosses a county line: mail addressed to 35214 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 35214 reports a median household income of $55,478, 12% below the $63,333 county median, and close to the $55,313 typical AL ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $149,600, 19% below the county figure and close to the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $987 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

A taxable purchase made inside 35214 carries 10% at the register, assembled from the Birmingham jurisdiction stack: the Alabama state rate plus every county, municipal and special district levy that reaches this address. Because those district boundaries were drawn for schools, transit and hospital funding rather than for mail delivery, two addresses inside 35214 can legitimately fall under different totals — the rate shown here is the one that applies to the dominant jurisdiction.

Everything above comes from the Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates for this ZIP Code Tabulation Area, with sales tax rates traced to the state revenue agency. Five-year estimates pool sixty months of responses, so they are stable enough to compare 35214 with its neighbours but always trail the current year, and any value the Census suppressed for sample size is shown as unpublished rather than filled in with a model.