Portales is also a college town, where lots of students live while attending area colleges. Because of the high percentage of people living in Portales enrolled in college, Portales has a number of services, amenities and opportunities geared towards the needs and activities of students.
Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 16.11 minutes getting to work every day.
As is often the case in a small city, Portales doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of Portales overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Portales, 24.52% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Portales in 2018 was $22,236, which is lower middle income relative to New Mexico, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $88,944 for a family of four. However, Portales contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Portales is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Portales home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Portales residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Portales also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 44.32% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Portales include German, English, Irish, European, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Portales is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
