ZIP code 02881

ZIP 02881 is a mid-size town in Washington County, Rhode Island, with 7,183 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #44 of 81 ranked by population — larger than 46% of them. The median age here is 19.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 02881 earn a median of not published a year. 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 35.4% 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 02881 is valued at $481,000, 58.5% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,368 a month, 2.7% below the national figure, or roughly $16,416 across a full year. 43.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. 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 19.8 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

The Census withheld household income for ZIP 02881 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 02881 is tabulated inside Washington County, Rhode Island, one of 20 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 81 across Rhode Island. 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 02881 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 02881 reports a median household income of not published. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $481,000, 4% above the county figure and 27% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,368 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Rhode Island charges 7% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 02881.

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 02881 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.