ZIP code 26278

ZIP 26278 is a very small community in Randolph County, West Virginia, with 540 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #438 of 738 ranked by population — larger than 40% of them. The median age here is 47.5 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 26278 earn a median of $60,379 a year, 23.1% below the national figure of $78,538. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 5.7% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 26278 is valued at $119,500, 60.6% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. 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. 87.1% 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. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

With 540 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 26278 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld gross rent for ZIP 26278 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 26278 is tabulated inside Randolph County, West Virginia, one of 22 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 738 across West Virginia. Fewer than 2,500 people are counted here, so the ZIP behaves like a village delivery route rather than a neighbourhood. 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 26278 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 26278 reports a median household income of $60,379, 3% above the $58,828 county median, and 11% above the $54,285 typical WV ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $119,500, 16% below the county figure and close to the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at not published 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 26278 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 26278 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.