ZIP code 46402

ZIP 46402 is a mid-size town in Lake County, Indiana, with 5,636 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #282 of 807 ranked by population — larger than 65% of them. The median age here is 34.6 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. 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 46402 earn a median of $29,125 a year, 62.9% 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 44.4% 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 46402 is valued at $61,200, 79.8% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $904 a month, 35.7% below the national figure, or roughly $10,848 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 37.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.1×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 37.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

ZIP 46402 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 37.2% of median income while homes cost only 2.1× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price.

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 46402 is tabulated inside Lake County, Indiana, one of 27 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 807 across Indiana. 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 46402 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 46402 reports a median household income of $29,125, 53% below the $61,427 county median, and 58% below the $68,990 typical IN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $61,200, 61% below the county figure and 64% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $904 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Indiana charges 7% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 46402.

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 46402 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.