In addition, Bloomington is a major college town that has a very high percentage of its residents over 18 years old who are college students. Naturally, collegiate life has a major influence on local Bloomington culture, lifestyle and entertainment options. Bloomington really pulses to the beat of the academic calendar. In Bloomington every fall, returning students reinvigorate the community, who you will notice are all over town, buying groceries, out with friends, and getting acquainted or re-acquainted with each other and Bloomington. One of the beneficial effects that colleges provide is that they tend to be lasting institutions that deliver direct economic benefits to the local economy in the form of such things as jobs for faculty and staff, and spending by students. Bloomington benefits directly from this.
Not only is Bloomington a city with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a very large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. That’s because Bloomington is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Bloomington a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.
Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 18.54 minutes getting to work every day.
Many people in Bloomington take advantage of public transportation to get around. In fact, for the size of the city, the number of people who use the bus to commute to work is quite high. This helps to fill a need among Bloomington citizens for affordable transportation.
If knowledge is power, Bloomington is a pretty powerful place. 59.82% of the adults in Bloomington have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.
The per capita income in Bloomington in 2022 was $31,069, which is upper middle income relative to Indiana, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $124,276 for a family of four. However, Bloomington contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Bloomington also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.08% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Bloomington is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Bloomington home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Bloomington residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Bloomington include German, English, Irish, Polish, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Bloomington is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.
