About Colby

Colby is a very small town located in the state of Wisconsin. With a population of 3,341 people and just one neighborhood, Colby is the 196th largest community in Wisconsin. Colby has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.

Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Colby is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 41.0% of the Colby workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 24.7%. Overall, Colby is a town of sales and office workers, production and manufacturing workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Colby who work in office and administrative support jobs (10.55%), farm management (9.53%), and sales jobs (7.25%).

Another important characteristic of Colby is that a lot of people work in agricultural jobs, especially compared to most other communities in America, and there are quite a number of farms in town.

A relatively large number of people in Colby telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 12.55% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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.

Residents of the town have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 17.74 minutes getting to work every day.

Being a small town, Colby does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Colby Information and Demographics

In Colby, just 9.45% of people over 25 hold a college degree, which is very low compared to the rest of the nation, whereas the average among all cities is 14.96%.

The per capita income in Colby in 2000 was $15,510, which is low income relative to Wisconsin, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $62,040 for a family of four.

The people who call Colby home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Colby is White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Colby include German, Norwegian, English, Polish, Swiss, and Irish.

The most common language spoken in Colby is English. Other important languages spoken here include Other West Germanic languages and Spanish.