ZIP code 24853

ZIP 24853 is a very small community in McDowell County, West Virginia, with 442 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #472 of 738 ranked by population — larger than 36% of them. The median age here is 68.5 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 24853 earn a median of $14,722 a year, 81.3% 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 54.1% 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 24853 is valued at not published, while median gross rent runs $605 a month, 57% below the national figure, or roughly $7,260 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 49.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is severely stretched — a median-income renter clears the cost-burden line by a wide margin before utilities beyond the gross-rent definition. 55.3% 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.

A median age of 68.5 puts ZIP 24853 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. With 442 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 24853 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld home value for ZIP 24853 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 24853 is tabulated inside McDowell County, West Virginia, one of 34 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 738 across West Virginia. 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 24853 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 24853 reports a median household income of $14,722, 56% below the $33,285 county median, and 73% below the $54,285 typical WV ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of not published. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $605 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

West Virginia charges 6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 24853 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 24853 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.