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Clay, WV

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





Overview


Clay is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 387 people and just one neighborhood, Clay is the 217th largest community in West Virginia.

Occupations and Workforce

Unlike some towns, Clay isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Clay are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Clay is a town of service providers, sales and office workers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Clay who work in office and administrative support (17.07%), healthcare suport services (13.41%), and healthcare (8.54%).

Setting & Lifestyle

Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Clay is worth considering.

Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Clay spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 17.30 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.

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

Demographics

In Clay, just 7.23% 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 21.84%.

The per capita income in Clay in 2018 was $7,727, which is low income relative to West Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $30,908 for a family of four. Clay also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 75.97% of its population below the federal poverty line.

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

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

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.

Length of Commute

Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 12.6% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.5% of all neighborhoods in America.

People

The neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 95.2% of the neighborhoods in the United States. The neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (59.7%) than found in 96.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.

Occupations

NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 42.9% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 96.0% of American neighborhoods.

Real Estate

Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 34.0% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 95.8% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.

In addition, uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 21 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 94.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

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 Clay are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 95.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 59.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.

The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.

In the neighborhood, 42.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 36.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.1%), and 9.9% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.0% of households.

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 Clay, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (17.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (12.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.2%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (5.0%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (3.2%), 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 (36.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (12.6%) who commute over an hour in each direction.

Here most residents (77.6%) 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 (20.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
Average Home Values
Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
Schools In District
Public School Test Scores
School District Enrollment
Educational Expenditures

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