Mercer is a tiny town located in the state of Missouri. With a population of 259 people and just one neighborhood, Mercer is the 477th largest community in Missouri.
When you are in Mercer, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 43.72% of Mercer’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Mercer is a town of production and manufacturing workers, sales and office workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Mercer who work in sales jobs (14.07%), management occupations (11.56%), and farm management occupations (9.05%).
Another important characteristic of Mercer is that a lot of people work in agricultural jobs, especially compared to most other communities in America, and there are quite a number of farms in town.
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Mercer has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
Mercer’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
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, Mercer has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Mercer a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
As is often the case in a small town, Mercer doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
In Mercer, just 12.13% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Mercer in 2022 was $33,572, which is upper middle income relative to Missouri, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $134,288 for a family of four. However, Mercer contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Mercer home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Mercer residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Mercer include German, Irish, English, Dutch, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Mercer is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.
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.
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 5.3% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Missouri, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Missouri.
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 46.0% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.4% 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, unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 4.3% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 96.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.5% 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 Mercer are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 77.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America'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, 40.6% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 24.7% 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 6.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.2% of households.
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 Mercer, MO, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (11.0%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (8.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (4.0%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (2.5%), along with some Norwegian ancestry residents (1.7%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (37.6% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (72.2%) 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 (13.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.