Ten Oaks · Photo: Jeffery Steading · CC BY-SA 3.0College students make up 32% of Jacksonville’s residents
About one in five stay in Jacksonville for work; outside it, Anniston is the main destination (19%, 10 miles). Jacksonville grades C− for jobs and income and B for walkability. Measured by family income, Jacksonville is behind 86% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jacksonville at work: what stands out
Jacksonville trades workers with the towns around it
Jacksonville has about as many jobs (3,776) as working residents (4,245), but they are mostly different people: 3,433 residents leave for work each day while 2,964 people come in. Only 22% of the jobs in Jacksonville are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Jacksonville 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 ↓
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.
Where Jacksonville’s Jobs & income grade comes from
Job access by car holds Jacksonville’s grade up (ahead of 42% of U.S. towns); family income pulls it down ($64,882, U.S. $99,999).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (18% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 14.6%, against 23.1% for all residents. Unemployment (7.5%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($64,882), since student households pull the household median down ($51,814).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Jacksonville could be anywhere from D to C+.
How a workday changes Jacksonville
On a workday 3,433 residents head out to work, 812 work right here, and 2,964 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 (0.89 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.
Getting to work from Jacksonville takes about 20 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Jacksonville workers work from home, vs 9% across Alabama. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 5,688 commuters (the 9% 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.
Out of Jacksonville to work: where people go
Where Jacksonville clocks in
19% of workers
7% of workers
5% 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.
The kinds of work in Jacksonville
3,776 jobs are based in Jacksonville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Jacksonville, 2013 → 2023: 4,067 → 3,776. 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 Jacksonville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many miles Jacksonville commutes
About 29% 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.
Most of Jacksonville commutes by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Jacksonville is more walkable than 60% of U.S. towns, #29 of 187 in Alabama. Both inputs place Jacksonville 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 6,220 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). 8.8% of Jacksonville households have no vehicle (Alabama 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Jacksonville’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Jacksonville is 1,965th of 2,227 U.S. towns of 10,000 to 19,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beverly Hills MI | 10,449 | $177K | 1.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | New Albany OH | 11,803 | $238K | 1.4% | 0.9% | 11% | A+ |
| 3 | Plain Township OH | 13,257 | $219K | 2.1% | 0.8% | 10% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 253 | Pike Road AL | 11,899 | $117K | 5.1% | 0.5% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 447 | Chelsea AL | 17,716 | $115K | 2.7% | 3.2% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 637 | Gardendale AL | 16,425 | $82K | 4.3% | 3.4% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,963 | Jennings MO | 13,093 | $39K | 25.2% | 8.9% | 2% | C− |
| 1,964 | Danville KY | 17,736 | $53K | 17.4% | 6.6% | 35% | C− |
| 1,965 | Jacksonville AL | 14,400 | $52K | 23.1% | 7.5% | 19% | C− |
| 1,966 | Great Bend KS | 14,266 | $54K | 16.9% | 4.7% | 42% | C− |
| 1,967 | Winton CA | 11,797 | $57K | 14.0% | 12.1% | 4% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,227 | Douglas AZ | 16,038 | $42K | 27.8% | 12.3% | 29% | 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 Jacksonville, 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 2023, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Students. 32% 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 Jacksonville: questions
What is the median household income in Jacksonville?
$51,814 (±$4,896) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,999 across Alabama and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Jacksonville?
23.1% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 14.6%. Alabama: 15.6%.
How long is the commute from Jacksonville?
20 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Alabama and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Jacksonville work?
19% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Anniston (19%, 10 mi), Oxford (7%, 16 mi), Gadsden (5%, 20 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Jacksonville walkable?
Jacksonville is more walkable than 60% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 7.8 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Jacksonville without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Jacksonville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Jacksonville
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.