ZIP code 71254

ZIP 71254 is a mid-size town in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, with 6,500 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #194 of 539 ranked by population — larger than 64% of them. The median age here is 34.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger 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 71254 earn a median of $25,987 a year, 66.9% 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 38.6% 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 71254 is valued at $75,600, 75.1% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $767 a month, 45.4% below the national figure, or roughly $9,204 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 35.4% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 53.9% 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.

ZIP 71254 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 35.4% of median income while homes cost only 2.9× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price.

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 71254 is tabulated inside East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, one of 3 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 539 across Louisiana. 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 71254 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 71254 reports a median household income of $25,987, 27% below the $35,494 county median, and 53% below the $54,720 typical LA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $75,600, 10% below the county figure and 51% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $767 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Louisiana charges 5% statewide, and local governments overlapping 71254 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 71254 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.