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Benwood, WV

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


Benwood is a very small city located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 1,210 people and just one neighborhood, Benwood is the 142nd largest community in West Virginia.

Occupations and Workforce

Benwood is a blue-collar town, with 43.39% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Benwood is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Benwood who work in office and administrative support (14.62%), maintenance occupations (8.40%), and management occupations (4.82%).

Setting & Lifestyle

The city is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Benwood has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Benwood a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.

Demographics

The population of Benwood has a very low overall level of education: only 9.06% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.

The per capita income in Benwood in 2018 was $23,741, which is lower middle income relative to West Virginia, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $94,964 for a family of four. However, Benwood contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Benwood home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Benwood residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Benwood include Irish, German, Polish, Italian, and Dutch.

The most common language spoken in Benwood is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.

People

Of note, 83.5% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.

In addition, one of the really interesting characteristics about the neighborhood is that, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research, it is an excellent choice in which to reside for college students. Due to its popularity among college students who already choose to live here, its walkability, and its above average safety from crime, the neighborhood is ideal for prospective or already-enrolled college students. Between semesters and during school breaks, you'll notice that the excitement here fluctuates with the college seasons. Despite the excitement however, parents of college-age children can rest easy knowing that this neighborhood has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 4.2% of college-friendly places to live in the state of West Virginia.

Occupations

More people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the neighborhood than in 97.1% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Croatian and Dutch ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Croatian ancestry and 4.7% have Dutch ancestry.

is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.9% of the neighborhoods in America.

The Neighbors

There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.

The neighbors in the neighborhood in Benwood are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 92.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 83.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.

What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.

In the neighborhood, 44.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 20.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.3%), and 13.8% in executive, management, and professional occupations.

Languages

The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.

In the neighborhood in Benwood, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (17.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (11.5%), and residents who report Polish roots (6.6%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (4.7%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (4.4%), among others.

Getting to Work

Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (76.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (13.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


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