78521 — Brownsville, Texas

Unemployment of 7.7% is lower than 2% of the 4,387 measured US ZIP areas.

Employment fell 0.8% over the past year, to 79,175 employed residents.

Median household income of $44,509 is below 91% of measured US ZIP areas.

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

Median rent of $889 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 2.2 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

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.

At 7.1 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US ZIP areas.

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

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 95°F and January a low of 53°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 26.8 inches.

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 hurricane, cold wave and hail.

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.

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 29 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 78521 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 Brownsville 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.