South Amboy is a somewhat small coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 9,329 people and three associated neighborhoods, South Amboy is the 208th largest community in New Jersey. South Amboy has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities.

Also of interest is that South Amboy 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: 9.75% 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.

South Amboy 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.

In South Amboy, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 31.70 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. In addition, the city is also quite pedestrian-friendly, because many neighborhoods are very dense and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot.

Despite being a small city, South Amboy has a lot of people using the train to get to and from work every day. Most of these people on the train are using it to get to good jobs in other cities.

In terms of college education, South Amboy is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 30.37% of adults in South Amboy have a college degree.

The per capita income in South Amboy in 2022 was $46,481, which is lower middle income relative to New Jersey, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $185,924 for a family of four. However, South Amboy contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

South Amboy is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call South Amboy home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of South Amboy residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. South Amboy also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 24.27% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in South Amboy include Irish, Italian, Polish, German, and English.

Foreign born people are also an important part of South Amboy's cultural character, accounting for 18.72% of the city’s population.

The most common language spoken in South Amboy is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.