Merced, CA (Gateways West)

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 Gateways West neighborhood in Merced are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 93.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 56.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.1% 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 Gateways West neighborhood, 28.4% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 21.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing (21.2%), and 16.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the Gateways West neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 65.8% of households. Some people also speak English (26.2%).

Ethnicity / Ancestry

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 Gateways West neighborhood in Merced, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (75.0%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (7.2%), and residents who report Spanish roots (1.2%). In addition, 29.0% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 Gateways West neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (9.4%) who commute over an hour in each direction.

Here most residents (71.6%) 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 (22.7%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.