ZIP code 88318

ZIP 88318 is a very small community in Lincoln County, New Mexico, with 344 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #250 of 372 ranked by population — larger than 32% of them. The median age here is 60.5 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 88318 earn a median of $60,208 a year, 23.3% 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 20.6% 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 88318 is valued at not published, while median gross rent runs not published a month. 75.9% 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.

A median age of 60.5 puts ZIP 88318 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 344 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 88318 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld home value, gross rent for ZIP 88318 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 88318 is tabulated inside Lincoln County, New Mexico, one of 15 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 372 across New Mexico. 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 88318 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 88318 reports a median household income of $60,208, close to the $58,770 county median, and 13% above the $53,479 typical NM ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of not published. 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.

New Mexico charges 4.875% statewide, and local governments overlapping 88318 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 88318 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.