ZIP code 81029

ZIP 81029 is a very small community in Baca County, Colorado, with 287 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #437 of 528 ranked by population — larger than 17% of them. The median age here is 51.3 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 81029 earn a median of $43,750 a year, 44.3% below the national figure of $78,538. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. 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 ZIP 81029 is valued at not published, while median gross rent runs $950 a month, 32.4% below the national figure, or roughly $11,400 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 26.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. 80.2% 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. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

A median age of 51.3 puts ZIP 81029 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 287 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 81029 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld home value for ZIP 81029 because the sample was too thin to publish at this geography. Those values were suppressed at the source, not lost in our dataset, and we do not model a replacement. Everything else on this page comes straight from the ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year tables.

ZIP 81029 is tabulated inside Baca County, Colorado, one of 6 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 528 across Colorado. This is one of the smallest tabulated ZIP areas in the state, the kind of rural route where a single subdivision or farm cluster accounts for most addresses. 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 81029 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 81029 reports a median household income of $43,750, close to the $43,021 county median, and 46% below the $80,917 typical CO ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of not published. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $950 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Colorado charges 2.9% statewide, and local governments overlapping 81029 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 81029 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.