Bear Lake is a tiny village located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 328 people and two constituent neighborhoods, Bear Lake is the 606th largest community in Michigan. Much of the housing stock in Bear Lake was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.

Bear Lake is a blue-collar town, with 36.0% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 24.7%. Overall, Bear Lake is a village of service providers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Bear Lake who work in office and administrative support jobs (10.29%), food service (9.56%), and sales jobs (9.56%).

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their homes - 7.46% 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 of the benefits of Bear Lake is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 16.77 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.

Being a small village, Bear Lake does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Bear Lake Information and Demographics

In terms of college education, Bear Lake is nearly on par with the US average for all cities of 14.96%: 15.53% of adults 25 and older in Bear Lake have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.

The per capita income in Bear Lake in 2000 was $15,170, which is lower middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $60,680 for a family of four.

The people who call Bear Lake home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Bear Lake is White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Bear Lake include German, English, Italian, Irish, Finnish, French, Swedish, Norwegian, European, Polish, and French Canadian.

The most common language spoken in Bear Lake is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German.