Dudley is a tiny town located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 826 people and three associated neighborhoods, Dudley is the 423rd largest community in North Carolina.Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Dudley is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 43.34% of the Dudley workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Dudley is a town of managers, construction workers and builders, and farmers, fishers, or foresters. There are especially a lot of people living in Dudley who work in farm management occupations (19.20%), management occupations (17.03%), and business and financial occupations (14.71%). Another important characteristic of Dudley is that a lot of people work in agricultural jobs, especially compared to most other communities in America, and there are quite a number of farms in town. Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 15.89% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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. Being a small town, Dudley does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.In terms of college education, the citizens of Dudley rank slightly lower than the national average. 14.94% of adults 25 and older in Dudley have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, while 21.84% of adults have a 4-year degree or higher in the average American community. The per capita income in Dudley in 2022 was $24,605, which is lower middle income relative to North Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $98,420 for a family of four. However, Dudley contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Dudley also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 30.81% of its population below the federal poverty line.Dudley is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Dudley home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Dudley residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Dudley also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 46.74% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Dudley include French, British, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, and West Indian. Foreign born people are also an important part of Dudley's cultural character, accounting for 22.85% of the town’s population. The most common language spoken in Dudley is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
