Kent is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of Washington. With a population of 134,392 people and 32 associated neighborhoods, Kent is the sixth largest community in Washington. Housing costs in Kent are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in Washington.Kent is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Kent is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Kent who work in office and administrative support (12.55%), management occupations (9.89%), and sales jobs (7.20%). Also of interest is that Kent 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: 10.09% 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. One downside of living in Kent is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Kent, the average commute to work is 31.28 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the city, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative. For the size of the city, public transportation in Kent is quite heavily used. Mostly, people who use it for their daily commute are taking the bus. For Kent, the benefits are reduced air pollution and congestion on the highways.The percentage of people in Kent who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 27.89% of adults in Kent have at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in Kent in 2022 was $39,714, which is upper middle income relative to Washington and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $158,856 for a family of four. However, Kent contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Kent is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Kent home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Kent residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Kent also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 16.27% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Kent include German, English, Irish, European, and Somalian. Foreign born people are also an important part of Kent's cultural character, accounting for 32.17% of the city’s population. The most common language spoken in Kent is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Vietnamese.
