Salem is a somewhat small coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 5,325 people and five associated neighborhoods, Salem is the 305th largest community in New Jersey. Salem has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities.Salem is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Salem is a city of service providers, transportation and shipping workers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Salem who work in healthcare suport services (12.15%), office and administrative support (10.00%), and management occupations (8.30%). Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 12.70% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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. Salem is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery. For a small city, Salem has a lot of people who use public transit to get to work, and those that do mostly ride taxis. This suggests that a real need for low-cost transportation in Salem exists, and local transit is helping to meet that need.In Salem, just 12.73% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%. The per capita income in Salem in 2022 was $24,371, which is low income relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $97,484 for a family of four. However, Salem contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Salem also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.21% of its population below the federal poverty line.Salem is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Salem home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Salem residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Salem include Irish, Italian, German, English, and French. The most common language spoken in Salem is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
