West Hamlin is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 509 people and just one neighborhood, West Hamlin is the 194th largest community in West Virginia.
West Hamlin is a blue-collar town, with 39.39% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, West Hamlin is a town of transportation and shipping workers, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Hamlin who work in sales jobs (16.97%), office and administrative support (11.52%), and management occupations (10.30%).
The town 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, West Hamlin has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes West Hamlin a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
In West Hamlin, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 32.06 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
West Hamlin is a very car-oriented town. 99.39% of residents commute to work in a private automobile rather than by other means, such as public transit, bicycling, or walking. This is because West Hamlin is a small town , and most people who live here have to drive out of town for work, and the town population is not large nor dense enough to support an extensive public transportation system. West Hamlin has a lot of rural roads, and houses can be far apart. Many residents drive out of town for regular shopping trips as well.
West Hamlin is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
In terms of college education, West Hamlin ranks among the least educated cities in the nation, as only 4.70% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in West Hamlin in 2018 was $24,177, which is middle income relative to West Virginia, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $96,708 for a family of four. However, West Hamlin contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call West Hamlin home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Hamlin residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in West Hamlin include Irish, German, English, Polish, and Welsh.
The most common language spoken in West Hamlin is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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.
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 98.7% of all neighborhoods in America, with 46.5% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. 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. 12.3% 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 97.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 96.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in West Hamlin are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 86.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 29.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 79.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 32.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 25.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.6%), and 16.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.0% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.9%).
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the neighborhood in West Hamlin, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (7.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (7.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (6.3%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (3.8%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (2.7%), among others.
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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.6% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (12.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (80.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.