Data Services KB:

These data are available from American FactFinder on the Census Bureau's website:

http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en

You will find these data under SF3. There are two choices of access. The first is to highlight all the 3-digit tabulation areas for California (900 - 961) and then select "all zip codes" within each 3-digit tabulation area. Or, go to the download center and download selected tables for all zip codes in the nation. I find the latter choice to be easier.

I’ve downloaded all zip codes for the nation (~33,000) and selected several tables you might be interested in:

Median household income
Median household income (black householder)
Median household income (Asian householder)
Median household income (non-Hispanic white householder
Median household income (Hispanic householder

The data are a pipe delimited text file:

44 | 567 | 345 | etc.

You can read it via Excel. Most statistical packages can handle delimiters as well.

In areas where the population of a subgroup is small, the median household income for that subgroup will not be reported. For instance, in the first zip code (00601), the median household income in 2000 was $9,888. The values for the subgroups is: blacks ($7,250), Asians (blank); Hispanics ($9,874), and white, non-Hispanics ($11,250). The data look like this:

. . . |9888|7250||9874|11250

One other thing you’ll notice is that on occasion there are zip codes that end in an HH or an XX. Zip codes are not census geography. The Census Bureau builds these from census tracts and uses the XX and HH coding to indicate uncertainty about the zip code assignment and water respectively. Here’s more about the HH and XX codes:

http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/dis/data/kb/answer.html?i=1062

If you have trouble using this file, let me know. I can shrink it down to your original request (California zip codes 90001 – 96162 and median household income).