ZIP code 73438

ZIP 73438 is a small town in Carter County, Oklahoma, with 3,055 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #244 of 664 ranked by population — larger than 63% of them. The median age here is 40.8 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 73438 earn a median of $50,542 a year, 35.6% 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 18.8% 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 73438 is valued at $70,900, 76.6% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $845 a month, 39.9% below the national figure, or roughly $10,140 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20.1% 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 1.4×, 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. 78.8% 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 73438 is tabulated inside Carter County, Oklahoma, one of 12 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 664 across Oklahoma. Population sits in the small-town band, typically one main street plus the addresses that feed into it. 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 73438 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 73438 reports a median household income of $50,542, 10% below the $56,372 county median, and 13% below the $57,827 typical OK ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $70,900, 35% below the county figure and 45% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $845 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Oklahoma charges 4.5% statewide, and local governments overlapping 73438 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 73438 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.