48312 — Sterling Heights, Michigan

Unemployment of 5.7% is lower than 12% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment grew 1.2% over the past year, to 64,045 employed residents.

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

Prices for everything a household buys run about 2% below the national average, on the Bureau of Economic Analysis index. Housing drives most of that difference.

A new two-bedroom lease runs about $1,370, some 13% above the $1,213 tenants already here pay — the market has moved faster than sitting tenancies have.

Median rent of $1,213 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.9 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.

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 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 35.0 inches, including 32.2 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 42, in the Good band, and about 3 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

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. Air quality is measured rather than modeled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — a little over half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and about a fifth of all US counties do, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Some things people look for are not on this page, and each is absent for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime

Offenses reported to police are published by department rather than by town, so AreaProfile shows a rate only on city profiles, and only where that city’s department submitted every month of a year. Any cities listed on this page carry their own figure where their department reported a full year. A partial year is never scaled up to look complete, and arrest counts or news volume are never substituted for it.

Taxes

Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.

Anything about a specific address

Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighborhood all vary within the places measured here.

Put 48312 side by side with a similar place.

Profile recalculated August 30, 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 Sterling Heights 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.