ZIP code profile · 2024 county data
ZIP Code 54542
Forest County, Wisconsin: Census demographics for this ZIP plus the containing county's FBI UCR crime rate.
Data updated 2026-09-05
- 218
- Violent rate /100K (county)
- 648
- Population (ZIP)
- 174
- Property rate /100K (county)
Is ZIP code 54542 safe? Honest data snapshot
ZIP code 54542 sits within Forest County, WI. The figures below are the county's own FBI UCR numbers for 2024, the most accurate available statistic for this location, not a ZIP-specific calculation.
Forest County reported a violent-crime rate of 218 per 100,000 residents and a property-crime rate of 174 per 100,000 in 2024, drawing on county-level agency submissions.
Based on just 20 reported violent incidents across a county population of 9,179, this count is too low to support a reliable per-100K rate comparison. It may reflect a genuinely low-crime county, or it may reflect incomplete agency-level reporting to the FBI UCR Program for this county and year, small county-level counts are common in FBI Table 10 and should be treated as a data point, not a precise safety ranking.
With 648 residents, ZIP 54542 is among the smaller ZIPs in Forest County (#6 of 7 by population), spread across 267.68 square miles (2/sq mi). For a full breakdown of Forest County's crime categories and year-over-year trend, see the Forest County crime page linked below.
ZIP 54542 has no FBI-native crime rate (postal codes are not police jurisdictions). The violent-led county proxy above is from Forest County agency submissions; see methodology for the ZCTA plurality map. Methodology.
ZIP 54542 Census context
These are ZIP/ZCTA demographic estimates, separate from the county-level FBI proxy above. They describe the local settlement, not a crime rate.
- Median household income
- $45,469
- Median age
- 50.7 years
- Owner-occupied homes
- 90%
- Occupied homes
- 261
- Median home value
- $138,000
- Bachelor's degree or higher
- 11.6%
- Poverty rate
- 10.3%
- Unemployment rate
- 0.0%
ZIP 54542's median home value of $138,000 is lower than 90% of the 725 WI ZIPs with a reported value, among the most affordable in the state by this measure.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2022 5-year ZCTA estimates (income, age, housing tenure, home value, education, and unemployment).
Forest County UCR book ZIP 54542 inherits
ZIP 54542 itself is about 2 people per Census sq mi across 267.7 sq mi (648 residents), a postal settlement fact independent of the county UCR proxy.
ZIP 54542 accounts for roughly 7.1% of the county reporting population (648 of 9,179).
Forest County leans on aggravated assault at 47% of reported offenses (mix index 3,002). ZIP 54542 has no separate FBI offense book.
Forest County 2024 vs 2022: property counts -64% vs 2022. Year-over-year moves are county agency submissions, still not ZIP-native.
Forest County offense mix (2024)
Mix index is HHI × 10,000 on county offense-type shares. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero; still county-agency data, not a ZIP-native FBI table.
Read with ZIP 54542
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (ZIP population, land area, 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file, ACS 5-year estimates) and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States (CIUS) Table 10 (county-level crime, attributed via ZIP-to-county crosswalk).
Verify with Census.gov Geography and FBI.gov UCR.
Read our methodology , how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page combines Census ZIP-level figures with a ZIP-to-county crosswalk to attribute FBI UCR crime data honestly, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.