ZIP code 38774

ZIP 38774 is a small town in Bolivar County, Mississippi, with 1,769 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #275 of 427 ranked by population — larger than 35% of them. The median age here is 41.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 38774 earn a median of $21,689 a year, 72.4% 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 59.8% 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 38774 is valued at $82,400, 72.8% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $654 a month, 53.5% below the national figure, or roughly $7,848 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 36.2% 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 3.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 60.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

ZIP 38774 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 36.2% of median income while homes cost only 3.8× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price.

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 38774 is tabulated inside Bolivar County, Mississippi, one of 15 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 427 across Mississippi. 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 38774 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 38774 reports a median household income of $21,689, 43% below the $38,172 county median, and 56% below the $49,375 typical MS ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $82,400, 4% below the county figure and 28% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $654 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Mississippi charges 7% statewide, and local governments overlapping 38774 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 38774 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.