Steilacoom, WA

ZIP code 98388 is assigned to Steilacoom, WA, and falls within Pierce County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 7,054 people live inside it.

At 798 residents per square mile spread over 8.836 square miles, 98388 reads as a small-town area. It is a smaller postal code by population, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings run above the national median. At $97,634, 98388 sits comfortably in the upper half, ahead of 81% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 98388 costs well above the national median. A typical home is valued at $594,600 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,721 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 64.8% owner-occupied, which tends to indicate a mix of housing types rather than one dominant form.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 77.0% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1977, making the housing here from the later twentieth century. At 2.9%, vacancy is low — housing here is tightly held.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 41 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.55 people, and 69.5% are family households.

Getting to work takes 29.9 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 62.6% of workers, while 21.7% work from home. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 98388 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 98388 offers a compact profile of Steilacoom: 7,054 residents, a median household income of $97,634, 45.3% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 6.0%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 98388 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Steilacoom may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.