Photo: Rivers Langley; SaveRivers · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Fort Deposit are among the lowest of any U.S. town
Fort Deposit grades D− for jobs and income and D− for walkability. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Poverty touches 47.7% of residents, against 15.6% across Alabama.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work and commuting in Fort Deposit, in brief
Fort Deposit makes and builds things
74% of the jobs based in Fort Deposit are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Fort Deposit residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 40%. The jobs ↓
Fort Deposit’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Fort Deposit is Montgomery, 31 miles away as the crow flies. 20% of working residents (76) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Fort Deposit workers spend longer getting to work
The average trip takes 36 minutes each way, against 26 across Alabama. Over a year that’s about 276 hours of commuting, 77 more than the state’s typical worker. Time on the road ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 376 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Fort Deposit
On income, poverty and job access, Fort Deposit is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Fort Deposit’s grade.
Unemployment (15.9%) is left out: Fort Deposit’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Fort Deposit stays D−.
In Fort Deposit, 74% of jobs are in factories, building or farming
319 jobs are based in Fort Deposit.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fort Deposit, 2014 → 2024: 395 → 319. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Fort Deposit’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where in the region Fort Deposit works
About 27% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
From Fort Deposit, about 36 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 11.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fort Deposit workers work from home, vs 9% across Alabama. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 355 commuters (the 1% 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.
Who commutes out of Fort Deposit, and who commutes in
On a workday 335 residents head out to work, 41 work right here, and 278 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 (0.85 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
20% of working residents work in Montgomery
Where Fort Deposit clocks in
20% of workers
11% of workers
4% 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.
Getting around Fort Deposit: mostly by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fort Deposit is more walkable than 2% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Fort Deposit near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 357 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). 17.3% of Fort Deposit households have no vehicle (Alabama 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fort Deposit’s commuters take a bus or train.
Fort Deposit next to U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 50 | Shoal Creek AL | 1,328 | $218K | 0.0% | 2.4% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 196 | Rock Creek AL | 1,103 | $84K | 2.5% | 2.8% | <1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 210 | Blue Ridge AL | 1,190 | $128K | 6.2% | 0.0% | <1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,711 | Red Boiling Springs TN | 1,201 | $40K | 37.5% | 9.9% | 3% | D− |
| 3,712 | Exmore VA | 1,396 | $29K | 28.9% | 7.3% | 8% | D− |
| 3,713 | Fort Deposit AL | 1,114 | $22K | 47.7% | 15.9% | 11% | D− |
| 3,714 | Drain OR | 1,190 | $46K | 35.3% | 7.1% | 7% | D− |
| 3,715 | Mariposa CA | 1,137 | $41K | 37.1% | 6.6% | 26% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Fort Deposit, the top three, the last and three more from Alabama.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. 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 Fort Deposit: questions
What is the median household income in Fort Deposit?
$21,563 (±$8,963) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,999 across Alabama and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fort Deposit?
47.7%, against 15.6% across Alabama and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fort Deposit?
36 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Alabama and 26 nationally. 1% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fort Deposit work?
11% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Montgomery (20%, 30 mi), Greenville (11%, 11 mi), Hayneville (4%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Fort Deposit walkable?
Fort Deposit is more walkable than 2% of U.S. towns (Walkability D−): an EPA walkability index of 3.5 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fort Deposit without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 17% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fort Deposit, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fort Deposit
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.