ZIP code 46979

ZIP 46979 is a mid-size town in Howard County, Indiana, with 5,026 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #304 of 807 ranked by population — larger than 62% of them. The median age here is 43.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older 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 46979 earn a median of $93,571 a year, 19.1% above the national figure of $78,538. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 5.4% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 46979 is valued at $205,000, 32.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $850 a month, 39.5% below the national figure, or roughly $10,200 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 10.9% 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 2.2×, 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. 91.8% 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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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 46979 is tabulated inside Howard County, Indiana, one of 6 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 46979 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 46979 reports a median household income of $93,571, 33% above the $70,193 county median, and 36% above the $68,990 typical IN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $205,000, 14% above the county figure and 22% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $850 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 46979.

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 46979 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.