Wells is a very small city located in the state of Minnesota. With a population of 2,410 people and just one neighborhood, Wells is the 285th largest community in Minnesota.
Wells is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Wells is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Wells who work in office and administrative support (15.07%), management occupations (10.17%), and teaching (7.44%).
Because of many things, Wells is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Wells really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Wells perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
One of the benefits of Wells is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 17.90 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
As is often the case in a small city, Wells doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of Wells overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Wells, 21.92% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Wells in 2022 was $29,362, which is low income relative to Minnesota, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $117,448 for a family of four. However, Wells contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Wells is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Wells home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wells residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Wells include German, Irish, Norwegian, Polish, and English.
The most common language spoken in Wells is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 65.3% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 96.3% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
If you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 7.9% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Minnesota, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Minnesota.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more German and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 46.8% of this neighborhood's residents have German ancestry and 10.0% have Norwegian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Wells are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 69.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 9.7% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 51.5% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the neighborhood, 32.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 28.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.2%), and 14.0% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 96.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
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 Wells, MN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (46.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.1%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (10.0%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (8.1%), along with some English ancestry residents (6.1%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (65.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (86.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.