Spencer is a very small town located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 3,354 people and just one neighborhood, Spencer is the 237th largest community in North Carolina.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Spencer is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 43.70% of the Spencer workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Spencer is a town of transportation and shipping workers, production and manufacturing workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Spencer who work in management occupations (11.22%), office and administrative support (9.78%), and teaching (9.19%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 16.71% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Being a small town, Spencer does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
In terms of college education, Spencer is nearly on par with the US average for all cities of 21.84%: 19.26% of adults 25 and older in Spencer have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Spencer in 2022 was $29,376, which is middle income relative to North Carolina, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $117,504 for a family of four. However, Spencer contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Spencer is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Spencer home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Spencer residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Spencer include English, Scots-Irish, German, Scottish, and Irish.
The most common language spoken in Spencer is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Spencer, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scots-Irish and Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 12.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Scots-Irish ancestry and 1.1% have Belgian ancestry.
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Spencer are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 21.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 71.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the neighborhood, 36.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 36.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.6%), and 9.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.1% of households. Some people also speak Italian (4.0%).
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Spencer, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (16.9%). There are also a number of people of Scots-Irish ancestry (12.1%), and residents who report English roots (7.9%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (2.6%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (2.3%), among others.
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (61.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (19.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.