ZIP code 42518

ZIP 42518 is a small town in Wayne County, Kentucky, with 2,946 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #265 of 779 ranked by population — larger than 66% of them. The median age here is 44.8 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 42518 earn a median of $52,472 a year, 33.2% 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 24.2% 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 42518 is valued at $132,300, 56.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $838 a month, 40.4% below the national figure, or roughly $10,056 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.2% 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 2.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 80% 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.

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 42518 is tabulated inside Wayne County, Kentucky, one of 3 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 42518 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 42518 reports a median household income of $52,472, 23% above the $42,500 county median, and 3% below the $53,906 typical KY ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $132,300, 7% above the county figure and close to the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $838 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 42518.

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 42518 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.