ZIP code 54856

ZIP 54856 is a small town in Bayfield County, Wisconsin, with 1,585 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #530 of 783 ranked by population — larger than 32% of them. The median age here is 51.9 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 54856 earn a median of $69,091 a year, 12% 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 5.9% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 54856 is valued at $182,700, 39.8% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,113 a month, 20.8% below the national figure, or roughly $13,356 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.3% 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 2.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 93% 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. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

A median age of 51.9 puts ZIP 54856 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 54856 is tabulated inside Bayfield County, Wisconsin, one of 10 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 783 across Wisconsin. 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 54856 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 54856 reports a median household income of $69,091, close to the $68,519 county median, and 6% below the $73,420 typical WI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $182,700, 21% below the county figure and 15% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,113 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 54856 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 54856 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.