Pine Grove is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 344 people and just one neighborhood, Pine Grove is the 223rd largest community in West Virginia. Much of the housing stock in Pine Grove 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, Pine Grove is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 43.04% of the Pine Grove workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Pine Grove is a town of production and manufacturing workers, professionals, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Pine Grove who work in management occupations (11.39%), sales jobs (8.86%), and food service (8.86%).
Of important note, Pine Grove is also a town of artists. Pine Grove has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Pine Grove’s character.
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, Pine Grove has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Pine Grove a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Pine Grove is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Pine Grove, the average commute to work is 45.28 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Pine Grove does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The percentage of people in Pine Grove with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 12.83% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Pine Grove in 2022 was $31,772, which is upper middle income relative to West Virginia, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $127,088 for a family of four. However, Pine Grove contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Pine Grove home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Pine Grove residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Pine Grove include Irish, German, Polish, English, and European.
The most common language spoken in Pine Grove is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and African languages.
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.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. 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. 13.8% 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 98.1% of all neighborhoods in America.
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 93.9% of the adult residents in the neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 96.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 18 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 95.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 95.6% 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.
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 Pine Grove are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 87.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 29.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 80.9% of U.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, 38.4% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 26.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (17.9%), and 17.6% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 100.0% of households.
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 Pine Grove, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (15.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (15.1%), and residents who report English roots (6.9%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (6.6%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (3.2%), 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 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (44.8% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
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 (13.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.