ZIP code 12981

ZIP 12981 is a small town in Clinton County, New York, with 2,233 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1003 of 1,824 ranked by population — larger than 45% of them. The median age here is 42.1 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 12981 earn a median of $73,258 a year, 6.7% below the national figure of $78,538. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. 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 12981 is valued at $141,900, 53.2% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $935 a month, 33.5% below the national figure, or roughly $11,220 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 15.3% 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 1.9×, 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. 87.2% 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. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

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 12981 is tabulated inside Clinton County, New York, one of 25 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,826 across New York. 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 12981 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 12981 reports a median household income of $73,258, close to the $73,214 county median, and 8% below the $79,429 typical NY ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $141,900, 16% below the county figure and 39% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $935 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

New York charges 4% statewide, and local governments overlapping 12981 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 12981 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.