ZIP code 08638

ZIP 08638 is a mid-size town in Mercer County, New Jersey, with 23,373 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #144 of 598 ranked by population — larger than 76% of them. The median age here is 35.8 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 08638 earn a median of $65,650 a year, 16.4% 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 21.6% 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 08638 is valued at $226,700, 25.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,499 a month, 6.6% above the national figure, or roughly $17,988 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 27.4% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 56.3% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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 08638 is tabulated inside Mercer County, New Jersey, one of 22 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 598 across New Jersey. 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 08638 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 08638 reports a median household income of $65,650, 40% below the $108,732 county median, and 40% below the $109,182 typical NJ ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $226,700, 37% below the county figure and 47% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,499 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

New Jersey charges 6.625% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 08638.

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 08638 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.