ZIP code 49903

ZIP 49903 is a very small community in Iron County, Michigan, with 228 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #921 of 992 ranked by population — larger than 7% of them. The median age here is 68.4 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 49903 earn a median of $38,266 a year, 51.3% 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 19.9% 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 49903 is valued at $56,700, 81.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $333 a month, 76.3% below the national figure, or roughly $3,996 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 10.4% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 1.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 91.8% 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. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

A median age of 68.4 puts ZIP 49903 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 228 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 49903 against its county rather than against national figures.

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 49903 is tabulated inside Iron County, Michigan, one of 6 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 49903 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 49903 reports a median household income of $38,266, 19% below the $47,020 county median, and 43% below the $66,726 typical MI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $56,700, 16% below the county figure and 68% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $333 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 49903.

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 49903 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.