Wise is a very small town located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 2,914 people and two associated neighborhoods, Wise is the 176th largest community in Virginia.Wise is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Wise is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Wise who work in teaching (15.30%), computer science and math (15.06%), and sales jobs (11.37%). Also of interest is that Wise has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 12.82% 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, Wise does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.In terms of college education, Wise is somewhat better educated than the 21.84% who have a 4-year degree or higher in the typical US community: 28.17% of adults 25 and older in the town have at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in Wise in 2022 was $26,451, which is lower middle income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $105,804 for a family of four. However, Wise contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. The people who call Wise home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wise residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Wise include English, Irish, Scottish, German, and European. The most common language spoken in Wise is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Persian.
