Photo: Rivers Langley SaveRivers · CC BY-SA 3.031% of Auburn’s residents are college students
Auburn grades B for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Family incomes here are higher than in 72% of U.S. towns. The average commute takes 20 minutes each way (Alabama 26, U.S. 26).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Auburn apart on work
Auburn and Opelika trade workers both ways
Opelika is the top workplace for Auburn residents (18%) and also where the most people who work in Auburn come from (11% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Commutes from Auburn are quick
The average trip to work takes 20 minutes, against 26 across Alabama. That’s about 46 hours a year less on the road than the typical Alabama worker. Time on the road ↓
Young people hold many of the jobs here
32% of the jobs based in Auburn are held by workers 29 or younger, against 28% of Auburn’s own working residents. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey.
The figures behind Auburn’s Jobs & income grade
On family income, poverty and job access, Auburn is better than 62% of U.S. towns, #52 of 187 in Alabama. Family income holds Auburn’s grade up ($112,245, U.S. $99,999); the poverty rate pulls it down (11.1%, U.S. 11.9%). It also does well on job access by car.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (25% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 11.1%, against 25.4% for all residents. Unemployment (3.2%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($112,245), since student households pull the household median down ($63,668).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Auburn could be anywhere from B− to B+.
18% of working residents work in Opelika
Where Auburn clocks in
18% of workers
5% of workers
2% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Each way, about 20 minutes from Auburn
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Auburn workers work from home, vs 9% across Alabama. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 33,342 commuters (the 11% who work from home are left out). Across Alabama: 88% 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.
Jobs in Auburn: what the 30,362 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Auburn, 2013 → 2023: 24,867 → 30,362. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2023.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Auburn’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who leaves Auburn for work, and who comes in
On a workday 13,906 residents head out to work, 10,917 work right here, and 19,445 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.22 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Auburn’s commute, mile by mile
About 19% show a job over 50 miles away. Some of that is real, and some is employers that report every worker at a head office, so a few long commutes are on paper only.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Good to walk, short on transit: Auburn
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Auburn is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns, #7 of 187 in Alabama. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 1.7% across Alabama, on an EPA index of 7.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 37,427 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). 4.1% of Auburn households have no vehicle (Alabama 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Auburn’s commuters take a bus or train.
Auburn next to U.S. towns of 60,000 to 115,000: 283rd of 531 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lakeville MN | 79,270 | $139K | 2.9% | 2.0% | 11% | A+ |
| 2 | Fulshear TX | 64,630 | $187K | 1.6% | 2.8% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Plymouth MN | 78,942 | $137K | 4.3% | 2.3% | 12% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 21 | Madison AL | 67,968 | $135K | 4.3% | 2.2% | 13% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 65 | Hoover AL | 93,550 | $109K | 5.1% | 3.5% | 18% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 281 | Manteca CA | 96,693 | $97K | 9.5% | 5.8% | 12% | B |
| 282 | Sparks NV | 111,902 | $89K | 8.5% | 5.2% | 23% | B |
| 283 | Auburn AL | 85,113 | $64K | 25.4% | 3.2% | 44% | B |
| 284 | Cranston RI | 84,647 | $90K | 10.2% | 6.1% | 16% | B |
| 285 | Woodland CA | 62,513 | $90K | 8.2% | 5.8% | 25% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 423 | Tuscaloosa AL | 114,316 | $51K | 25.1% | 7.7% | 46% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 531 | Albany GA | 66,907 | $47K | 27.5% | 11.2% | 51% | 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 Auburn, the top three, the last and three more from Alabama.
Auburn and its neighbors: 18% work next door
Jobs & commute next door
The biggest share goes to Opelika. Darker towns draw more of Auburn’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Students. 31% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Auburn: questions
What is the median household income in Auburn?
$63,668 (±$4,618) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,999 across Alabama and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Auburn?
25.4% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 11.1%. Alabama: 15.6%.
How long is the commute from Auburn?
20 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Alabama and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Auburn work?
44% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Opelika (18%, 8 mi), Montgomery (5%, 49 mi), Columbus (2%, 36 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Auburn walkable?
Auburn is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.7 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Auburn without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Auburn, from the people who make the trip.
More of Auburn
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer. 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.