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ZIP Code 27587 Demographics

By the ZIP Code Demographics Editorial Team · Last updated: October 2026

This profile covers ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) 27587, which lies mainly in Wake County, North Carolina. A ZCTA is not the same thing as a USPS ZIP Code: the Postal Service assigns ZIP Codes to mail routes, while the Census Bureau builds ZCTAs out of census blocks so that survey data can be published for areas that approximate those routes. Boundaries can differ, a single ZIP Code can be split, and some ZIP Codes have no ZCTA at all. Every figure below therefore describes the ZCTA, and we label it that way throughout this page.

With 82,886 residents spread over roughly 105.1 square miles of land, ZCTA 27587 has a population density of about 789 people per square mile. Its average household size is 2.81 people, compared with 2.59 nationally. Those two numbers frame everything else in this profile: density shapes housing costs and commuting patterns, while household size shapes income and housing-demand figures.

ZIP 27587 at a Glance — Full Demographic Table

The table above is the centerpiece of this profile, and each row is explored in the sections that follow. All values come from the same release — the American Community Survey (ACS) 2020–2024 5-year estimates — so the figures are internally consistent and can be compared row by row with the state and national benchmarks quoted in the text.

Income and Economic Profile

The median household income in ZCTA 27587 is $133,743 — 84.8% higher than the North Carolina median of $72,388 and 65.7% higher than the national median of $80,734. The median is the midpoint: half of households earn more and half earn less, which makes it a better summary than an average in areas where a small number of very high incomes would pull the mean upward. Per-capita income, which divides total income by every resident including children, is $59,229 here, versus $41,385 statewide and $44,673 nationally.

Read together, the two income measures say different things. A high median household income alongside a lower per-capita figure usually points to larger households or more earners per household; a high per-capita figure alongside the median points to income concentrated among working-age adults. In ZCTA 27587, the gap between the $133,743 household median and the $59,229 per-capita figure should be read alongside the average household size of 2.81 and the age profile below before drawing conclusions about prosperity or cost pressure.

Age and Households

The median age in ZCTA 27587 is 40.8 years, compared with 39.1 in North Carolina and 38.9 nationally. Median age is one of the fastest ways to understand a place: younger areas tend to have more renters, more children per household and faster household formation, while older areas tend to have more outright homeowners and greater demand for health and accessibility services. Neither pattern is better or worse — but the two profiles imply very different local economies, school enrollments and housing markets.

The area contains 29,545 households. Households — people living together in one housing unit — are the unit behind the income and housing figures on this page, so the household count matters as much as the headline population. Dividing the population by households gives the 2.81-person average quoted above; small changes in that average, driven by aging, family size or shared living arrangements, move median income and rent burden figures even when individual earnings stay flat.

Race and Ethnicity

Residents who identify as Hispanic or Latino (of any race) make up 8.6% of ZCTA 27587's population — 7,093 people — compared with 11.3% in North Carolina and 19.3% nationally. The Census Bureau treats Hispanic origin as an ethnicity separate from race, so the race shares in the table and the Hispanic share overlap rather than adding to one hundred percent. The largest single race group here is the one at the top of the table; comparing its share with the state pattern in the comparison section below shows whether this ZIP area mirrors its state or has a distinctly local composition, as is common in large metropolitan ZCTAs.

Education and Employment

Among residents age 25 and over, 57.7% in ZCTA 27587 hold a bachelor's degree or higher — 32,409 people out of 56,171 adults — versus 35.7% statewide and 35.7% nationally. Educational attainment is the single strongest statistical predictor of local earnings, and it usually tracks the income figures above: degree-heavy ZCTAs cluster in professional employment centers, while areas below the state share often rely on industries where credentials matter less than licenses or experience.

On employment, 67.3% of residents age 16 and over are employed, the labor-force participation rate is 70.1%, and the unemployment rate among the civilian labor force is 3.5%, compared with 4.7% statewide and 5.2% nationally. These are five-year survey averages covering 2020–2024, a period that includes the pandemic labor-market shock and the recovery that followed, so they describe the era rather than any single month. Current-month unemployment for a specific ZIP Code is not published by any federal source; anyone quoting one is modeling it, and we do not.

Housing Costs

The median value of owner-occupied homes in ZCTA 27587 is $497,800, versus $288,900 statewide and $332,700 nationally. The median gross rent is $1,544, versus $1,228 statewide and $1,413 nationally. Gross rent includes utilities paid by the renter, and home value is the owner's own estimate as reported to the survey — both are the standard ACS housing-cost measures. Housing costs here should be weighed against the median household income above: as a rough rule, the ratio of median value to median income shows how many years of typical earnings a typical home costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Data: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS) 2020–2024 5-year estimates, retrieved October 2026. Source files and table numbers are listed on our methodology page; the underlying data is published at census.gov.