ZIP code 42638

ZIP 42638 is a very small community in McCreary County, Kentucky, with 300 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #653 of 779 ranked by population — larger than 16% of them. The median age here is 57.3 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 42638 earn a median of not published a year. 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 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 42638 is valued at $36,000, 88.1% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. 100% 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.

A median age of 57.3 puts ZIP 42638 well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages. With 300 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 42638 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld household income, gross rent for ZIP 42638 because the sample was too thin to publish at this geography. Those values were suppressed at the source, not lost in our dataset, and we do not model a replacement. Everything else on this page comes straight from the ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year tables.

ZIP 42638 is tabulated inside McCreary County, Kentucky, one of 7 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 779 across Kentucky. This is one of the smallest tabulated ZIP areas in the state, the kind of rural route where a single subdivision or farm cluster accounts for most addresses. 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 42638 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 42638 reports a median household income of not published. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $36,000, 52% below the county figure and 72% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at not published 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 42638.

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 42638 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.