ZIP code 96051

ZIP 96051 is a very small community in Shasta County, California, with 885 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1446 of 1,803 ranked by population — larger than 19% of them. The median age here is 63.4 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 ZIP 96051 earn a median of $63,000 a year, 19.8% 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 19.4% 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 96051 is valued at $311,700, 2.7% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $980 a month, 30.3% below the national figure, or roughly $11,760 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.7% 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 4.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 88% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 63.4 puts ZIP 96051 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. With 885 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 96051 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.

ZIP 96051 is tabulated inside Shasta County, California, one of 24 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,803 across California. Fewer than 2,500 people are counted here, so the ZIP behaves like a village delivery route rather than a neighbourhood. 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 96051 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 96051 reports a median household income of $63,000, 3% below the $65,000 county median, and 30% below the $89,916 typical CA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $311,700, 9% below the county figure and 50% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $980 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

California charges 7.25% statewide, and local governments overlapping 96051 may add county, city or special-district levies on top. We publish the state floor for this ZIP rather than guessing a combined figure, because ZIP boundaries and taxing-district boundaries were drawn for different purposes and do not line up.

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 96051 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.