New Salem is a tiny town located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 499 people and just one neighborhood, New Salem is the 982nd largest community in Pennsylvania. Much of the housing stock in New Salem was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, New Salem is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 64.95% of the New Salem workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, New Salem is a town of transportation and shipping workers, construction workers and builders, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in New Salem who work in teaching (8.76%), management occupations (7.86%), and food service (6.34%).
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, New Salem is worth considering.
One downside of living in New Salem, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 37.08 minutes every day commuting to work.
Being a small town, New Salem does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The population of New Salem has a very low overall level of education: only 8.81% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
The per capita income in New Salem in 2022 was $29,943, which is lower middle income relative to Pennsylvania, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $119,772 for a family of four. However, New Salem contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call New Salem home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of New Salem residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in New Salem include German, Italian, English, Scots-Irish, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in New Salem is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Slovak and Croatian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 8.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Slovak ancestry and 2.8% have Croatian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 18.8% 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 99.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 New Salem are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 21.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 70.5% 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, 33.4% 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 32.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (24.5%), and 9.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 95.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, Italian and Arabic.
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in New Salem, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (17.1%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (15.7%), and residents who report German roots (13.4%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (13.2%), along with some English ancestry residents (13.1%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (76.8%) 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 (9.7%) and 6.1% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.