Kelso is a somewhat small city located in the state of Washington. With a population of 12,691 people and six associated neighborhoods, Kelso is the 79th largest community in Washington.Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Kelso is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Kelso is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Kelso who work in office and administrative support (13.51%), management occupations (8.88%), and food service (8.31%). Being a small city, Kelso does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.The rate of college-level education in Kelso is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 11.38% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree. The per capita income in Kelso in 2022 was $27,832, which is low income relative to Washington, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $111,328 for a family of four. However, Kelso contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Kelso is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Kelso home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Kelso residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Kelso also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 16.11% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Kelso include German, Irish, English, Norwegian, and Italian. The most common language spoken in Kelso is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
