Gastonia is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 82,653 people and 39 associated neighborhoods, Gastonia is the 13th largest community in North Carolina.Gastonia is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Gastonia is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Gastonia who work in office and administrative support (10.86%), sales jobs (10.09%), and management occupations (9.08%). Also of interest is that Gastonia 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: 7.38% 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 overall education level of Gastonia is somewhat higher than in the average US city of 21.84%: 26.53% of adults 25 and older in the city have at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in Gastonia in 2022 was $31,832, which is upper middle income relative to North Carolina, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $127,328 for a family of four. However, Gastonia contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Gastonia is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Gastonia home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Gastonia residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Gastonia also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 10.44% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Gastonia include German, English, Irish, Scots-Irish, and African. The most common language spoken in Gastonia is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
