ZIP code 49838

ZIP 49838 is a very small community in Mackinac County, Michigan, with 434 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #891 of 992 ranked by population — larger than 10% of them. The median age here is 60.8 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 49838 earn a median of $39,773 a year, 49.4% below the national figure of $78,538. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 14.7% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 49838 is valued at $168,800, 44.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 91.5% 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 60.8 puts ZIP 49838 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 434 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 49838 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld gross rent for ZIP 49838 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 49838 is tabulated inside Mackinac County, Michigan, one of 10 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 992 across Michigan. 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 49838 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 49838 reports a median household income of $39,773, 26% below the $53,631 county median, and 40% below the $66,726 typical MI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $168,800, 15% above the county figure and 6% 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.

Michigan charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 49838.

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 49838 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.