ZIP code 28631

ZIP 28631 is a very small community in Ashe County, North Carolina, with 724 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #711 of 853 ranked by population — larger than 16% of them. The median age here is 45.1 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 28631 earn a median of $28,798 a year, 63.3% 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 49.3% 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 28631 is valued at not published, while median gross rent runs not published a month. 72% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 724 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 28631 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld home value, gross rent for ZIP 28631 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 28631 is tabulated inside Ashe County, North Carolina, one of 11 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 853 across North Carolina. 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 28631 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 28631 reports a median household income of $28,798, 43% below the $50,946 county median, and 54% below the $62,646 typical NC 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.

North Carolina charges 4.75% statewide, and local governments overlapping 28631 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 28631 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.