ZIP code 78340

ZIP 78340 is a very small community in Refugio County, Texas, with 405 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1646 of 1,989 ranked by population — larger than 17% of them. The median age here is 52.3 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 78340 earn a median of $55,375 a year, 29.5% 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 8.6% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 78340 is valued at $161,200, 46.9% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,488 a month, 5.8% above the national figure, or roughly $17,856 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 32.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.9×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 87.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

ZIP 78340 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 32.2% of median income while homes cost only 2.9× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 52.3 puts ZIP 78340 well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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 78340 is tabulated inside Refugio County, Texas, one of 4 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,989 across Texas. This is one of the smallest tabulated ZIP areas in the state, the kind of rural route where a single subdivision or farm cluster accounts for most addresses. 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 78340 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 78340 reports a median household income of $55,375, 6% below the $59,082 county median, and 19% below the $68,103 typical TX ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $161,200, 73% above the county figure and 17% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,488 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Texas charges 6.25% statewide, and local governments overlapping 78340 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 78340 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.