ZIP code 40854

ZIP 40854 is a very small community in Harlan County, Kentucky, with 853 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #494 of 779 ranked by population — larger than 36% of them. The median age here is 48.9 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 40854 earn a median of $33,077 a year, 57.9% 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 36.5% 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 40854 is valued at $74,500, 75.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $640 a month, 54.5% below the national figure, or roughly $7,680 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 23.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.3×, 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. 55.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 853 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 40854 against its county rather than against national figures.

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 40854 is tabulated inside Harlan County, Kentucky, one of 25 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 779 across Kentucky. Fewer than 2,500 people are counted here, so the ZIP behaves like a village delivery route rather than a neighbourhood. 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 40854 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 40854 reports a median household income of $33,077, 9% below the $36,430 county median, and 39% below the $53,906 typical KY ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $74,500, 15% above the county figure and 43% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $640 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Kentucky charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 40854.

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 40854 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.