New Bern is a medium-sized coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 31,539 people and 14 associated neighborhoods, New Bern is the 32nd largest community in North Carolina.Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, New Bern is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, New Bern is a city of professionals, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in New Bern who work in sales jobs (10.47%), food service (8.62%), and healthcare (8.62%). Also of interest is that New Bern has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. New Bern is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various waterfront activities. One of the benefits of New Bern is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 19.12 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result. Even though New Bern is not a small city, it doesn't have a public transportation system that anybody uses for their daily commute to work.The percentage of people in New Bern who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 28.37% of adults in New Bern have at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in New Bern in 2022 was $35,330, which is upper middle income relative to North Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $141,320 for a family of four. However, New Bern contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. New Bern is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call New Bern home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of New Bern residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in New Bern include English, German, Irish, French, and Scottish. The most common language spoken in New Bern is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Other Asian languages.
