Grand Rapids is a relatively large city located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 196,908 people and 63 associated neighborhoods, Grand Rapids is the second largest community in Michigan. Much of the housing stock in Grand Rapids was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.Grand Rapids is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Grand Rapids is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Grand Rapids who work in office and administrative support (10.62%), management occupations (9.10%), and sales jobs (8.74%). Also of interest is that Grand Rapids 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: 10.66% 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. The education level of Grand Rapids citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 39.29% of adults in Grand Rapids have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree. The per capita income in Grand Rapids in 2022 was $32,371, which is middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $129,484 for a family of four. However, Grand Rapids contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Grand Rapids is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Grand Rapids home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Grand Rapids residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Grand Rapids also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 15.95% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Grand Rapids include German, Dutch, Irish, English, and Polish. The most common language spoken in Grand Rapids is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
