49444 — Norton Shores, Michigan

Unemployment of 4.1% is lower than 69% of the 4,387 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 7.9% over the past year, to 11,027 employed residents.

Median household income of $53,054 is below 81% of measured US ZIP areas.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish labor-force data for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Norton Shores, MI, the city containing this ZIP code.

Median rent of $979 takes 22% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.1 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 1.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Norton Shores, MI, the city containing this ZIP code.

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 82°F and January a low of 21°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 35.1 inches, including 87.2 inches of snow.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today.

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are strong wind and heat wave.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. ZIP values are the land-area-weighted mean of the counties the ZIP Code Tabulation Area intersects. Expected annual loss is not allocated below county level. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

AreaProfile does not yet publish tax comparisons. No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, methodology transparency and update cadence, and the product rule is to omit a dimension rather than estimate it. The Area Score is calculated without a tax component and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Nothing on AreaProfile is individualized tax advice.

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 40 miles away.

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

Put 49444 side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated August 29, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

How this ZIP area compares with Norton Shores as a whole. Both figures come from the same ACS release, so the comparison is like for like.

Some demographic statistics use Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, which approximate but do not exactly match USPS ZIP delivery geography. See the methodology for how AreaProfile maps between them.