Laurel is a medium-sized city located in the state of Maryland. With a population of 29,400 people and 24 associated neighborhoods, Laurel is the 38th largest community in Maryland.Laurel is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Laurel is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Laurel who work in management occupations (12.61%), office and administrative support (9.93%), and sales jobs (8.01%). Also of interest is that Laurel has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. A relatively large number of people in Laurel telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 12.70% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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. In Laurel, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 33.74 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. Although the majority of commuting trips in the city are by private automobile, Laurel is somewhat unusual for a city of its size for having a substantial number of people who use public transportation. For a lot of people, taxis helps to get to and from their jobs every morning, which benefits everyone in the Laurel area by reducing both traffic and air pollution.The citizens of Laurel are among the most well-educated in the nation: 45.36% of adults in Laurel have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in Laurel in 2022 was $45,887, which is middle income relative to Maryland, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $183,548 for a family of four. However, Laurel contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Laurel is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Laurel home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Laurel residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Laurel also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 18.28% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Laurel include African, Jamaican, Irish, German, and Nigerian. In addition, Laurel has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (28.95%). The most common language spoken in Laurel is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
