ZIP code 38122

ZIP 38122 is a small city in Shelby County, Tennessee, with 25,310 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #90 of 638 ranked by population — larger than 86% of them. The median age here is 31.4 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 38122 earn a median of $45,456 a year, 42.1% below the national figure of $78,538. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 27.2% 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 38122 is valued at $108,200, 64.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,127 a month, 19.8% below the national figure, or roughly $13,524 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 29.8% 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 2.4×, 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. 48.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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 38122 is tabulated inside Shelby County, Tennessee, one of 38 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 638 across Tennessee. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. 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 38122 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 38122 reports a median household income of $45,456, 21% below the $57,500 county median, and 23% below the $59,143 typical TN ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $108,200, 43% below the county figure and 45% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,127 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

A taxable purchase made inside 38122 carries 9.75% at the register, assembled from the Memphis jurisdiction stack: the Tennessee state rate plus every county, municipal and special district levy that reaches this address. Because those district boundaries were drawn for schools, transit and hospital funding rather than for mail delivery, two addresses inside 38122 can legitimately fall under different totals — the rate shown here is the one that applies to the dominant jurisdiction.

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 38122 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.