Salem is a very small city located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 1,474 people and three associated neighborhoods, Salem is the 125th largest community in West Virginia. Much of the housing stock in Salem was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.Salem is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Salem is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Salem who work in maintenance occupations (16.32%), sales jobs (12.86%), and office and administrative support (10.26%).Salem is also a college town, where lots of students live while attending area colleges. Because of the high percentage of people living in Salem enrolled in college, Salem has a number of services, amenities and opportunities geared towards the needs and activities of students. The percentage of adults in Salem who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 18.24% of the adults in Salem have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree. The per capita income in Salem in 2022 was $20,352, which is low income relative to West Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $81,408 for a family of four. However, Salem contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. The people who call Salem home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Salem residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Salem include German, English, Irish, Italian, and Scots-Irish. The most common language spoken in Salem is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and West Germanic languages.
