ZIP code 26034

ZIP 26034 is a small town in Hancock County, West Virginia, with 4,555 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #105 of 738 ranked by population — larger than 85% of them. The median age here is 50.1 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 26034 earn a median of $57,382 a year, 26.9% 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 13.9% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 26034 is valued at $117,400, 61.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $769 a month, 45.3% below the national figure, or roughly $9,228 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.1% 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 2×, 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. 80.3% 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.

A median age of 50.1 puts ZIP 26034 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.

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 26034 is tabulated inside Hancock County, West Virginia, one of 5 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 738 across West Virginia. 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 26034 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 26034 reports a median household income of $57,382, 3% below the $59,027 county median, and 6% above the $54,285 typical WV ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $117,400, close to the county figure and 3% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $769 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 26034 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 26034 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.