ZIP code 42217

ZIP 42217 is a small town in Christian County, Kentucky, with 3,739 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #241 of 779 ranked by population — larger than 69% of them. The median age here is 40.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 42217 earn a median of $60,655 a year, 22.8% below 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 12.7% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 42217 is valued at $130,200, 57.1% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $858 a month, 39% below the national figure, or roughly $10,296 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17% 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. 83.6% 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. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

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 42217 is tabulated inside Christian County, Kentucky, one of 8 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 779 across Kentucky. 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 42217 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 42217 reports a median household income of $60,655, 6% below the $64,362 county median, and 13% above the $53,906 typical KY ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $130,200, 11% below the county figure and close to the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $858 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 42217.

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 42217 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.