ZIP code 50501

ZIP 50501 is a small city in Webster County, Iowa, with 28,633 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #25 of 970 ranked by population — larger than 97% of them. The median age here is 39.3 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 50501 earn a median of $66,130 a year, 15.8% 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 12.7% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 50501 is valued at $139,700, 54% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $779 a month, 44.6% below the national figure, or roughly $9,348 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 14.1% 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 2.1×, 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. 66.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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 50501 is tabulated inside Webster County, Iowa, one of 14 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 970 across Iowa. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. 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 50501 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 50501 reports a median household income of $66,130, 14% below the $76,473 county median, and 7% below the $71,182 typical IA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $139,700, close to the county figure and 8% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $779 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Iowa charges 6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 50501 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 50501 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.