Fairmont is a medium-sized city located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 18,155 people and 13 associated neighborhoods, Fairmont is the eighth largest community in West Virginia.Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Fairmont is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Fairmont is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Fairmont who work in office and administrative support (12.21%), sales jobs (8.72%), and teaching (7.55%). Also of interest is that Fairmont 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: 10.58% 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. In terms of college education, Fairmont is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 31.14% of adults in Fairmont have a college degree. The per capita income in Fairmont in 2022 was $31,722, which is upper middle income relative to West Virginia, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $126,888 for a family of four. However, Fairmont contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Fairmont is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Fairmont home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Fairmont residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Fairmont include German, Irish, English, Italian, and Polish. The most common language spoken in Fairmont is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.
