East Brookfield is a very small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 2,204 people and just one neighborhood, East Brookfield is the 298th largest community in Massachusetts. Much of the housing stock in East Brookfield was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Unlike some towns, East Brookfield isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in East Brookfield are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, East Brookfield is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in East Brookfield who work in sales jobs (12.71%), healthcare (11.79%), and office and administrative support (11.60%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 9.56% 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.
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, East Brookfield is worth considering.
One downside of living in East Brookfield, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 36.31 minutes every day commuting to work.
As is often the case in a small town, East Brookfield doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The percentage of people in East Brookfield who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 26.03% of adults in East Brookfield have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in East Brookfield in 2022 was $41,738, which is low income relative to Massachusetts, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $166,952 for a family of four.
The people who call East Brookfield home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of East Brookfield residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in East Brookfield include French, Irish, English, Italian, and German.
The most common language spoken in East Brookfield is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Portuguese.
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 14.0% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry and 4.7% have French Canadian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in East Brookfield are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 56.1% of the neighborhoods in America. With 11.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 53.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the neighborhood, 42.0% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 27.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (15.5%), and 14.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Portuguese.
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the neighborhood in East Brookfield, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as French (14.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (13.1%), and residents who report English roots (10.4%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (7.0%), along with some German ancestry residents (6.9%), among others.
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (37.7% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (86.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.