One thing noticeable about Harrisburg, although not a huge city, is that it has a large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. That’s because Harrisburg is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Harrisburg a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.
Harrisburg has a lot of people who ride the bus to and from work. In fact, for its size, Harrisburg has quite a high level of public transit users. Harrisburg’s need for inexpensive transportation options for its citizens is quite high.
The citizens of Harrisburg are slightly better educated than the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns, with 23.86% of adults in Harrisburg having a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Harrisburg in 2018 was $26,237, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $104,948 for a family of four. However, Harrisburg contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Harrisburg is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Harrisburg home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Harrisburg residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Harrisburg also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 24.70% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Harrisburg include German, Irish, English, Italian, and African.
The most common language spoken in Harrisburg is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.
