Oakdale is a somewhat small city located in the state of Louisiana. With a population of 6,520 people and three associated neighborhoods, Oakdale is the 71st largest community in Louisiana.Oakdale is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Oakdale is a city of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Oakdale who work in healthcare (10.03%), food service (9.53%), and teaching (7.54%). Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 8.67% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes. Being a small city, Oakdale does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.The percentage of people in Oakdale with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 10.08% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree. The per capita income in Oakdale in 2022 was $21,406, which is lower middle income relative to Louisiana, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $85,624 for a family of four. However, Oakdale contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Oakdale is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Oakdale home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Oakdale residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Oakdale also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 16.28% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Oakdale include Irish, French, English, Scottish, and Lebanese. In addition, Oakdale has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (15.28%). The most common language spoken in Oakdale is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.
