Bethel is a tiny town located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 460 people and just one neighborhood, Bethel is the 998th largest community in Pennsylvania. Bethel has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns.
Bethel is a blue-collar town, with 47.08% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Bethel is a town of transportation and shipping workers, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Bethel who work in sales jobs (13.23%), business and financial occupations (10.89%), and computer science and math (9.73%).
Also of interest is that Bethel has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 15.18% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.
Overall, Bethel’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
One downside of living in Bethel is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Bethel, the average commute to work is 37.73 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
As is often the case in a small town, Bethel doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The rate of college-level education in Bethel is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 11.28% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Bethel in 2022 was $24,555, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $98,220 for a family of four. However, Bethel contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Bethel also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 51.62% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Bethel is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Bethel home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Bethel residents report their race to be White. Bethel also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 25.55% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Bethel include German, Italian, English, Swedish, and French.
The most common language spoken in Bethel is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Bethel, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 39.1% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.9% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
With 1.5% of employed workers living in the neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 95.1% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scots-Irish and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Scots-Irish ancestry and 37.5% have German ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Bethel are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 66.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 11.2% 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.
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, 40.2% 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 27.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.1%), and 14.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, Spanish and German/Yiddish.
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 Bethel, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (37.5%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (15.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (6.1%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.7%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (3.7%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (78.5%) 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 (9.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.