Paw Paw is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 412 people and two associated neighborhoods, Paw Paw is the 215th largest community in West Virginia. Much of the housing stock in Paw Paw was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.Paw Paw is a blue-collar town, with 49.14% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Paw Paw is a town of service providers, construction workers and builders, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Paw Paw who work in food service (21.71%), teaching (7.43%), and healthcare suport services (6.29%). It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Paw Paw has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Paw Paw has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Paw Paw than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Paw Paw may be for you. One downside of living in Paw Paw is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Paw Paw, the average commute to work is 35.84 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. As is often the case in a small town, Paw Paw doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.Paw Paw ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 5.61% of people over 25 have a college degree. The per capita income in Paw Paw in 2022 was $23,810, which is lower middle income relative to West Virginia, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $95,240 for a family of four. However, Paw Paw contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Paw Paw is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Paw Paw home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Paw Paw residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Paw Paw also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.45% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Paw Paw include German, Irish, Greek, English, and Scottish. The most common language spoken in Paw Paw is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
