Masontown is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 508 people and just one neighborhood, Masontown is the 197th largest community in West Virginia.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Masontown is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 35.67% of the Masontown workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Masontown is a town of sales and office workers, construction workers and builders, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Masontown who work in sales jobs (23.98%), office and administrative support (16.37%), and farm management occupations (10.53%).
Overall, Masontown’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
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, Masontown is worth considering.
In Masontown, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 34.12 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Masontown does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The education level of Masontown citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 18.89% of adults 25 and older in Masontown have a college degree.
The per capita income in Masontown in 2022 was $27,997, 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 $111,988 for a family of four. However, Masontown contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Masontown home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Masontown residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Masontown include German, European, English, Irish, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Masontown is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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.
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Masontown is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in WV, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 89.9% of the neighborhoods in West Virginia. If you are considering retiring to West Virginia, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
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 Masontown are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 72.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 11.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 53.3% 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, 32.6% 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 26.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (21.6%), and 18.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (4.5%).
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 Masontown, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (21.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.6%), and residents who report English roots (10.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.4%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (1.9%), among others.
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (40.0% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (78.6%) 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 (14.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.