ZIP code 21856

ZIP 21856 is a very small community in Wicomico County, Maryland, with 816 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #364 of 477 ranked by population — larger than 23% of them. The median age here is 52.6 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 21856 earn a median of $77,946 a year, essentially level with 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 16.7% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 21856 is valued at $242,700, 20% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.1×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 80.6% 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. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 52.6 puts ZIP 21856 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 816 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 21856 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld gross rent for ZIP 21856 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 21856 is tabulated inside Wicomico County, Maryland, one of 16 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 477 across Maryland. 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 21856 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 21856 reports a median household income of $77,946, 3% above the $76,007 county median, and 25% below the $104,338 typical MD ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $242,700, 8% above the county figure and 39% 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.

Maryland charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 21856.

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 21856 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.