ZIP code 38843

ZIP 38843 is a mid-size town in Itawamba County, Mississippi, with 12,275 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #82 of 427 ranked by population — larger than 80% of them. The median age here is 36.6 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 38843 earn a median of $59,785 a year, 23.9% 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 9.9% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 38843 is valued at $141,800, 53.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $816 a month, 42% below the national figure, or roughly $9,792 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.4% 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 2.4×, 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. 75.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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 38843 is tabulated inside Itawamba County, Mississippi, one of 6 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 427 across Mississippi. This is a mid-sized ZIP that covers a large share of its county's 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 38843 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 38843 reports a median household income of $59,785, close to the $60,852 county median, and 21% above the $49,375 typical MS ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $141,800, 22% above the county figure and 25% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $816 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 38843 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 38843 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.