ZIP code 38079

ZIP 38079 is a small town in Lake County, Tennessee, with 4,450 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #313 of 638 ranked by population — larger than 51% of them. The median age here is 44.2 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 38079 earn a median of $28,750 a year, 63.4% 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 33% 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 38079 is valued at $153,400, 49.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $438 a month, 68.8% below the national figure, or roughly $5,256 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.3% 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 5.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 48.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. 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 38079 is tabulated inside Lake County, Tennessee, one of 3 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 638 across Tennessee. 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 38079 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 38079 reports a median household income of $28,750, 8% below the $31,250 county median, and 51% below the $59,143 typical TN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $153,400, 31% above the county figure and 21% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $438 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Tennessee charges 7% statewide, and local governments overlapping 38079 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 38079 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.