Photo: HMS · CC BY-SA 3.0Jobs and the daily commute in Sutton-Alpine
Commuters spend 37 minutes getting to work on average; the Alaska average is 19, the U.S. 26. Sutton-Alpine grades B− for jobs and income and B− for walkability. Poverty touches 3.2% of residents, next to 10.1% for Alaska as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Sutton-Alpine’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, Sutton-Alpine is better than 49% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Sutton-Alpine’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (9.0%) is left out: Sutton-Alpine’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Sutton-Alpine could be anywhere from C to B.
The daily trip from Sutton-Alpine: about 37 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 11.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sutton-Alpine workers work from home, vs 10% across Alaska. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 411 commuters (the 6% who work from home are left out). Across Alaska: 72% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
For most of Sutton-Alpine, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Sutton-Alpine is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 9.9% across Alaska, on an EPA index of 4.9.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 439 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 0.0% of Sutton-Alpine households have no vehicle (Alaska 9.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Sutton-Alpine’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Sutton-Alpine ranks: 2,310th of 6,161 U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,200
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,251 | Prudhoe Bay AK | 1,664 | — | 6.3% | 1.2% | — | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,778 | Bear Creek AK | 1,732 | $96K | 3.1% | 6.7% | — | B |
| … | |||||||
| 2,014 | Kodiak Station AK | 1,823 | $84K | 3.2% | 0.0% | — | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,308 | Riverside Township MI | 1,141 | $72K | 2.7% | 0.5% | 5% | B− |
| 2,309 | Lower Frankford Township PA | 1,833 | $77K | 11.8% | 3.5% | <1% | B− |
| 2,310 | Sutton-Alpine AK | 1,598 | $75K | 3.2% | 9.0% | — | B− |
| 2,311 | Lyles TN | 1,385 | $68K | 8.7% | 0.0% | 0% | B− |
| 2,312 | Gridley IL | 1,428 | $67K | 5.7% | 2.6% | 2% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 6,161 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 0% | D− |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Sutton-Alpine, the top three, the last and three more from Alaska.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Sutton-Alpine: questions
What is the median household income in Sutton-Alpine?
$75,119 (±$15,230) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $92,788 across Alaska and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sutton-Alpine?
3.2%, against 10.1% across Alaska and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sutton-Alpine?
37 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Alaska and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Is Sutton-Alpine walkable?
Sutton-Alpine is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 4.9 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Sutton-Alpine without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Sutton-Alpine, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sutton-Alpine
Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.