Salem 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. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.
For a small city, Salem has a lot of people who use public transit to get to work, and those that do mostly ride the bus. This suggests that a real need for low-cost transportation in Salem exists, and local transit is helping to meet that need.
The percentage of people in Salem with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 11.29% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Salem in 2022 was $21,330, which is low income relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $85,320 for a family of four. However, Salem contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Salem also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.63% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Salem is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Salem home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Salem residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Salem also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 10.26% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Salem include Italian, Irish, German, English, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Salem is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
