ZIP code 53224

ZIP 53224 is a mid-size town in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, with 21,445 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #94 of 783 ranked by population — larger than 88% of them. The median age here is 29 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 53224 earn a median of $69,727 a year, 11.2% 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 24.9% 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 53224 is valued at $194,600, 35.9% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,160 a month, 17.5% below the national figure, or roughly $13,920 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20% 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 2.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 51.3% 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 29 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. 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 53224 is tabulated inside Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, one of 36 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 783 across Wisconsin. 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 53224 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 53224 reports a median household income of $69,727, close to the $68,482 county median, and 5% below the $73,420 typical WI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $194,600, 5% below the county figure and 9% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,160 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Wisconsin charges 5% statewide, and local governments overlapping 53224 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 53224 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.