28532Havelock, North Carolina

Area Profile

Income, jobs, climate, physical risk and development data for ZIP code 28532.

45out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 5% of 5,298 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity5114th of 6,210 ZIP areas measured38
SchoolsTop 46% of 4,422 ZIP areas measured55
Growth5385th of 5,428 ZIP areas measured7
Housing affordability3663rd of 6,685 ZIP areas measured77
ClimateTop 29% of 6,789 ZIP areas measured75
Physical resilience5905th of 6,709 ZIP areas measured18
Access6041st of 6,791 ZIP areas measured69
Economic stability4451st of 6,742 ZIP areas measured51
The quick read

Employment conditions sit below most comparable published ZIP profiles: unemployment is 3.7% and the Opportunity signal places 28532 in the bottom 18%.

Residential permitting has slowed: 2 units authorized over the past twelve months, 50% below the prior year.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by hurricane and lightning.

At a glance

Population
20,908
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$60,605
Bottom 31% nationally
Density
126/sq mi
165.4 sq mi of land
Median age
30.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
City
Havelock
North Carolina
Metro area
New Bern, NC
Nearest major airport
ISO
50 mi · Kinston Rgnl Jetport At Stallings Fld
Median home value
$218,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.7% is lower than 78% of the 6,544 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 3.0% over the past year, to 38,358 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$5,245$60,605Bottom 31%of 31,2952024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,117$30,365Bottom 28%of 32,8222024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate14.4%Top 34%of 32,9702024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute24.3 minBottom 31%of 32,8872024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher20.6%Bottom 42%of 33,1932024 ACS 5-Year
Employment38,358Bottom 38%of 6,544June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-5.5%Bottom 2%of 6,542June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-3.0%Bottom 8%of 6,544June 2026
Labor force39,813Bottom 38%of 6,544June 2026
Labor force participation66.7%Top 26%of 33,2522024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.3%Bottom 31%of 6,544June 2026
Unemployment rate3.7%Bottom 22%of 6,544June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202466k58k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $60,605 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.

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

39% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 48% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 17.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
9
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
17.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
39.2%
Top 42% in North Carolina
Reading proficiency
48.1%
Top 37% in North Carolina
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Havelock HighCraven County Board of Education1,01423.6
Arthur W Edwards ElementaryCraven County Board of Education48915.331%43%
Tucker Creek MiddleCraven County Board of Education47815.952%62%
Roger Bell New Tech AcademyCraven County Board of Education40817.024%30%
W Jesse Gurganus ElementaryCraven County Board of Education34014.271%66%
Havelock MiddleCraven County Board of Education31313.022%47%
Havelock ElementaryCraven County Board of Education24813.143%37%
Graham A Barden ElementaryCraven County Board of Education23714.830%50%
Early College EAST HighCraven County Board of Education20841.6

62.8% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against North Carolina’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $1,269 takes 25% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.6 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
25.1%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.6×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,269
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$218,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Home price to income3.60Top 37%of 30,4042024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate52.0%Bottom 10%of 32,9102024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±4549,403Top 18%of 33,7722024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$71$1,269Top 32%of 26,6182024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$10,142$218,000Bottom 49%of 30,9412024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income25.1%Top 14%of 26,4702024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate12.6%Top 44%of 33,0282024 ACS 5-Year

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.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
7/ 100
Ranks 5385 of 5,428 published city profiles

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

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

At 0.1 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is below the median for measured US ZIP areas.

Units permitted
2
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
0.1
Bottom 6% nationally
Year over year
−50%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings

The Building Permits Survey is not published for ZIP areas. This is the figure for Havelock, NC, the city containing this ZIP code.

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 36°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 57.4 inches.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station CHERRY POINT MCAS, 0.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND8.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
Annual precipitation57.4"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall0.8"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low36°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Seasonal temperature swing35°F1991-2020 Normals

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.

Physical risk

18 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane and lightning.

HurricaneHigh
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, tornado, heat wave, wildfire, inland flooding, strong wind, ice storm, earthquake, coastal flooding, cold wave, drought, hail, landslide.

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.

These are deaths, not offences — they say nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Craven County records 9.8 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 17.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 17.6 per 100,000 residents in Craven County.

Homicide
9.8
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
17.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
17.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
20.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Craven County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around 28532 rather than 28532 itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing 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
Offences reported to police are published by department rather than by town, and only where a department reported every month of the year. No municipal department reports for this place — many smaller communities are policed by the county — so there is no figure to show. 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 individualised 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 neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 50 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Kinston Rgnl Jetport At Stallings FldISO50 mi11,498 ft
Wilmington IntlILM73 mi8,016 ft
Raleigh-Durham IntlRDU126 mi10,000 ft

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.

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Area Score
45
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Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them

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.

28532 vs Havelock

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

28532
Havelock
Median household income
$60,605
vs
$58,408
Per capita income
$30,365
vs
$29,099
Population density
126/sq mi
vs
1,035/sq mi
Median home value
$218,000
vs
$207,700
Median gross rent
$1,269
vs
$1,280
Homeownership rate
52.0%
vs
41.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher
20.6%
vs
18.7%
Poverty rate
14.4%
vs
14.3%
Median age
30.9
vs
24.7

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.