Laurel is a medium-sized city located in the state of Maryland. With a population of 29,352 people and 24 associated neighborhoods, Laurel is the 38th largest community in Maryland.Laurel is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Laurel is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Laurel who work in management occupations (12.61%), office and administrative support (9.93%), and sales jobs (8.01%). Also of interest is that Laurel 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: 12.70% 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. In Laurel, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 33.74 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average. One bright side is that local public transit is widely used, so it may be an option to avoid the headache of driving in the heavy traffic by leaving the car at home and taking transit. For the size of the city, public transportation in Laurel is quite heavily used. Mostly, people who use it for their daily commute are taking taxis. For Laurel, the benefits are reduced air pollution and congestion on the highways.Laurel is one of the most well-educated cities in the nation. 45.36% of adults in Laurel have at least a bachelor's degree. Compare that to the average community in America, which has just 21.84% with a bachelor's degree or higher. The per capita income in Laurel in 2022 was $45,887, which is middle income relative to Maryland, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $183,548 for a family of four. However, Laurel contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Laurel is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Laurel home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Laurel residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Laurel also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 18.28% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Laurel include African, Jamaican, Irish, German, and Nigerian. Foreign born people are also an important part of Laurel's cultural character, accounting for 28.95% of the city’s population. The most common language spoken in Laurel is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
