Photo: Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0Little Rock has 2.2 jobs for every working resident: 126,506 people commute in to work
Employers in Little Rock report 181,770 jobs for 82,633 working residents. Jobs and income earn Little Rock B−; getting around on foot earns it A−. About two in three stay in Little Rock for work; outside it, North Little Rock is the main destination (8%, 8 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Little Rock: the figures worth knowing
Jobs & income in Little Rock: the grade in detail
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Little Rock is better than 46% of U.S. towns, #38 of 123 in Arkansas. Job access by car holds Little Rock’s grade up (ahead of 85% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (17.5%, U.S. 12.5%). It also does well on unemployment.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Little Rock could be anywhere from C+ to B−.
The workday shuffle in and out of Little Rock
On a workday 27,369 residents head out to work and 55,264 work right here.
About 306,000 people are in Little Rock on a workday afternoon, 48% more than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
Who travels to work in Little Rock, and from where
Where Little Rock clocks in
8% 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.
The kinds of work in Little Rock
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Little Rock, 2014 → 2024: 166,563 → 181,770. 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 Little Rock’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 19 minutes in Little Rock
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Little Rock workers work from home, vs 9% across Arkansas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 83,359 commuters (the 12% who work from home are left out). Across Arkansas: 87% 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.
The distance from Little Rock to work
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.
Little Rock is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Little Rock is more walkable than 77% of U.S. towns, #7 of 123 in Arkansas. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 2.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, above the 2.0% across Arkansas.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 95,182 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 58% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 21% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 3.0 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 75% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 8.0% of Little Rock households have no vehicle (Arkansas 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Little Rock’s commuters take a bus or train.
These are town averages; neighborhoods differ.
Little Rock next to U.S. towns of 144,000 to 279,000: 76th of 135 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Hempstead NY | 238,982 | $158K | 4.5% | 4.1% | 20% | A |
| 2 | Frisco TX | 236,955 | $150K | 3.6% | 4.6% | 14% | A |
| 3 | Olathe KS | 150,025 | $114K | 5.6% | 2.7% | 25% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 74 | Hialeah FL | 230,968 | $56K | 17.0% | 4.1% | 15% | B− |
| 75 | Grand Rapids MI | 201,183 | $69K | 16.9% | 5.2% | 34% | B− |
| 76 | Little Rock AR | 206,427 | $63K | 17.5% | 4.1% | 67% | B− |
| 77 | Tallahassee FL | 204,902 | $57K | 23.6% | 6.4% | 68% | B− |
| 78 | Visalia CA | 146,541 | $82K | 11.5% | 6.9% | 44% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 135 | Macon-Bibb County GA | 157,556 | $51K | 24.7% | 8.1% | 52% | 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 Little Rock, the top three, the last and three more from Arkansas.
Next door to Little Rock
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Little Rock workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Little Rock | – | B− | A− | 19 min | $63,003 |
| College Station | under 1% | — | — | — | — |
| North Little Rock | 8% | C | B+ | 20 min | $52,707 |
| Alexander | under 1% | C | D | 26 min | $57,250 |
Same-state neighbors only. College Station: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
The biggest share goes to North Little Rock. Darker towns draw more of Little Rock’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 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 Little Rock: questions
What is the median household income in Little Rock?
$63,003 (±$2,303) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $60,773 across Arkansas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Little Rock?
17.5%, against 16.0% across Arkansas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Little Rock?
19 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Arkansas and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Little Rock work?
67% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are North Little Rock (8%, 8 mi), Conway (2%, 25 mi), Bryant (1%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Little Rock walkable?
Little Rock is more walkable than 77% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 10.9 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Little Rock without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. 21% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Little Rock, from the people who make the trip.
More of Little Rock
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.