Reading is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 95,112 people and 48 constituent neighborhoods, Reading is the fourth largest community in Pennsylvania. Reading has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Reading is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 40.60% of the Reading workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Reading is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Reading who work in office and administrative support (11.21%), food service (7.06%), and healthcare suport services (6.68%).
A lot of people in Reading take taxis for their daily commute. For the size of the city, the number of people who use public transportation is quite high. For many people in Reading, this fills their need for low-cost transportation.
The percentage of people in Reading with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 10.07% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Reading in 2018 was $17,150, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $68,600 for a family of four. However, Reading contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Reading also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 30.94% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Reading is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Reading home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Reading, accounting for 67.02% of the city’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Reading residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Reading include German, Irish, Italian, Polish, and English.
In addition, Reading has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (18.60%).
The most common language spoken in Reading is Spanish. Other important languages spoken here include English and French Creole.