Photo: Tommy Lee Kreger · CC BY 2.0At 17.8%, unemployment in Lindsay is among the highest of any U.S. town
Working from home is the commute for 6% of workers, next to 17% for California as a whole. Jobs and income earn Lindsay D; getting around on foot earns it B+. Measured by household income, Lindsay is behind 84% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Lindsay: the gist
Why Lindsay gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Lindsay is better than 8% of U.S. towns, #803 of 847 in California. Job access by car holds Lindsay’s grade up (ahead of 50% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Lindsay stays D.
Jobs in Lindsay: what the 2,708 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lindsay, 2013 → 2023: 2,819 → 2,708. 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 Lindsay’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The daily commute in and out of Lindsay
On a workday 3,650 residents head out to work, 648 work right here, and 2,060 people come in from elsewhere.
About 11,000 people are in Lindsay on a workday afternoon, 13% fewer than live here.
0.63 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
13% of working residents work in Visalia
Where Lindsay clocks in
13% of workers
8% 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 Lindsay spends getting to work: about 28 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lindsay workers work from home, vs 17% across California. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 3,846 commuters (the 6% who work from home are left out). Across California: 79% drive alone, 3% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
How far it is to work from Lindsay
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.
For most of Lindsay, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Lindsay is more walkable than 70% of U.S. towns, #547 of 847 in California. Both inputs place Lindsay 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 4,098 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% 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 under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% 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). 9.8% of Lindsay households have no vehicle (California 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Lindsay’s commuters take a bus or train.
Lindsay and other U.S. towns of 9,000 to 17,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| 2 | Beverly Hills MI | 10,449 | $177K | 1.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | New Albany OH | 11,803 | $238K | 1.4% | 0.9% | 11% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 15 | Piedmont CA | 10,642 | $250K | 4.3% | 1.5% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 79 | Sierra Madre CA | 10,620 | $144K | 4.6% | 2.6% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 126 | Alamo CA | 14,488 | $250K | 2.1% | 3.6% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,266 | Lake Los Angeles CA | 13,051 | $61K | 18.9% | 8.7% | 3% | D |
| 2,267 | Camden AR | 10,127 | $49K | 20.5% | 6.8% | 32% | D |
| 2,268 | Lindsay CA | 12,578 | $53K | 33.1% | 17.8% | 15% | D |
| 2,269 | Brunswick GA | 15,730 | $40K | 30.9% | 7.6% | 24% | D |
| 2,270 | Eden NC | 15,500 | $47K | 19.2% | 8.3% | 19% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 2,354 | 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 Lindsay, the top three, the last and three more from California.
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 Lindsay: questions
What is the median household income in Lindsay?
$53,201 (±$9,000) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $99,122 across California and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lindsay?
33.1%, against 12.0% across California and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lindsay?
28 minutes each way on average, against 29 across California and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lindsay work?
15% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Visalia (13%, 15 mi), Porterville (8%, 11 mi), Fresno (5%, 56 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lindsay walkable?
Lindsay is more walkable than 70% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 8.2 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lindsay without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lindsay, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lindsay
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.