ZIP code 19970

ZIP 19970 is a mid-size town in Sussex County, Delaware, with 8,265 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #38 of 68 ranked by population — larger than 44% of them. The median age here is 62.9 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 19970 earn a median of $90,802 a year, 15.6% above 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 12.8% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 19970 is valued at $489,500, 61.3% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,458 a month, 3.7% above the national figure, or roughly $17,496 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.3% 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 5.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 91% 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. 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 62.9 puts ZIP 19970 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. Median income runs above the national figure while poverty also runs above it — a split distribution, not a uniformly comfortable place. Averages hide that; the two numbers together do not.

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 19970 is tabulated inside Sussex County, Delaware, one of 22 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 68 across Delaware. Population sits in the small-town band, typically one main street plus the addresses that feed into it. 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 19970 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 19970 reports a median household income of $90,802, 13% above the $80,672 county median, and 14% above the $79,698 typical DE ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $489,500, 49% above the county figure and 65% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,458 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Delaware charges 0% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 19970.

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 19970 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.