Stout's Hotel · Photo: Marine 69-71 · CC BY-SA 4.0Household incomes in Gila Bend trail those of 85% of U.S. towns
12.2% of residents live below the poverty line, next to 12.5% for Arizona as a whole. For jobs and income Gila Bend is better than 9% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 49% of U.S. towns (B−). Home is the office for 0% of workers (Arizona 18%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Gila Bend, in brief
Gila Bend’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Gila Bend is Phoenix, 55 miles away as the crow flies. 22% of working residents (123) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Gila Bend is where the jobs are
Gila Bend has 971 jobs, 1.7 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Gila Bend makes and builds things
65% of the jobs based in Gila Bend are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Gila Bend residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 24%. 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; with 572 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What’s behind Gila Bend’s Jobs & income grade
The poverty rate holds Gila Bend’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (near the bottom of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Gila Bend’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, Gila Bend could be anywhere from D− to C+.
Gila Bend’s commute, mile by mile
About 43% 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.
Gila Bend by day and by night
On a workday 447 residents head out to work, 125 work right here, and 846 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,200 people are in Gila Bend on a workday afternoon, 22% more than live here.
1.7 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Making and building: 65% of jobs based in Gila Bend
971 jobs are based in Gila Bend.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Gila Bend, 2013 → 2023: 551 → 971. 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 Gila Bend’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting in to Gila Bend: where workers come from
Where Gila Bend clocks in
22% 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.
How long Gila Bend spends getting to work: about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Gila Bend workers work from home, vs 18% across Arizona. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 699 commuters (the 0% who work from home are left out). Across Arizona: 82% 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 Gila Bend, work means a drive
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.9% across Arizona.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 699 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 87% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 0.3 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 45% 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). 6.6% of Gila Bend households have no vehicle (Arizona 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Gila Bend’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,500, Gila Bend ranks 4,860th of 5,656 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 939 | Fort Valley AZ | 1,761 | $126K | 5.2% | 0.6% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,168 | Centennial Park AZ | 1,839 | $168K | 3.5% | 2.5% | 31% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,190 | Bellemont AZ | 1,701 | $120K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,858 | Cordova NC | 1,372 | $61K | 46.7% | 27.7% | 4% | D |
| 4,859 | Sargent TX | 1,422 | $60K | 18.6% | 4.7% | 1% | D |
| 4,860 | Gila Bend AZ | 1,816 | $52K | 12.2% | 0.0% | 22% | D |
| 4,861 | Stockton IL | 1,669 | $47K | 15.6% | 4.6% | 16% | D |
| 4,862 | Weldon NC | 1,374 | $48K | 17.5% | 6.5% | 6% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,656 | 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 Gila Bend, the top three, the last and three more from Arizona.
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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Gila Bend: questions
What is the median household income in Gila Bend?
$52,254 (±$22,113) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $79,964 across Arizona and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Gila Bend?
12.2%, against 12.5% across Arizona and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Gila Bend?
21 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Arizona and 26 nationally. 0% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Gila Bend work?
22% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Phoenix (22%, 55 mi), Mesa (5%, 65 mi), Theba (5%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Gila Bend walkable?
Gila Bend is more walkable than 49% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 12.0 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Gila Bend without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Gila Bend, from the people who make the trip.
More of Gila Bend
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.