ZIP code 02121

ZIP 02121 is a small city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, with 28,298 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #72 of 539 ranked by population — larger than 86% of them. The median age here is 34.2 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 02121 earn a median of $38,565 a year, 50.9% 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 26.5% 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 02121 is valued at $548,100, 80.7% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,316 a month, 6.4% below the national figure, or roughly $15,792 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 40.9% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is severely stretched — a median-income renter clears the cost-burden line by a wide margin before utilities beyond the gross-rent definition. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 14.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 23.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

Home values sit at 14.2× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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 02121 is tabulated inside Suffolk County, Massachusetts, one of 35 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 539 across Massachusetts. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. 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 02121 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 02121 reports a median household income of $38,565, 58% below the $91,111 county median, and 64% below the $107,198 typical MA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $548,100, 20% below the county figure and 14% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,316 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Massachusetts charges 6.25% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 02121.

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 02121 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.