Photo: Sgerbic · CC BY-SA 4.0Household incomes in Salinas top those of 70% of U.S. towns
4% of workers work from home, where California as a whole has 17%. 13.6% of residents are in poverty; California has 12.0%. Jobs and income earn Salinas B; getting around on foot earns it A−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Salinas
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Salinas
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Salinas is better than 57% of U.S. towns, #432 of 847 in California. Job access by car holds Salinas’ grade up (ahead of 72% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down. It also does well on household income.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Salinas could be anywhere from B− to B.
How long Salinas spends getting to work: about 27 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Salinas workers work from home, vs 17% across California. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 65,016 commuters (the 4% 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.
The daily commute in and out of Salinas
On a workday 34,648 residents head out to work, 22,024 work right here, and 30,032 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 (0.92 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.
5% of working residents work in Monterey
Where Salinas clocks in
5% of workers
4% 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 Salinas
52,056 jobs are based in Salinas.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Salinas, 2013 → 2023: 42,864 → 52,056. 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 Salinas’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Near or far: the trip to work from Salinas
About 24% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Salinas
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Salinas is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns, #425 of 847 in California. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 2.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 7.1% across California.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 67,964 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). Nearly all residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 38% 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). 5.2% of Salinas households have no vehicle (California 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Salinas’ commuters take a bus or train.
These are town averages; neighborhoods differ.
Out of 215 U.S. towns of 111,000 to 215,000, Salinas comes 106th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pearland TX | 129,930 | $119K | 4.1% | 3.3% | 10% | A+ |
| 2 | Smithtown NY | 116,847 | $153K | 4.2% | 3.9% | 16% | A |
| 3 | Berkeley CA | 121,911 | $108K | 17.3% | 5.6% | 21% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 10 | Sunnyvale CA | 156,577 | $186K | 5.8% | 4.5% | 14% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 30 | Santa Clara CA | 133,446 | $179K | 8.4% | 5.1% | 14% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 104 | Oxnard CA | 199,651 | $96K | 11.0% | 6.5% | 27% | B |
| 105 | Sterling Heights MI | 133,931 | $80K | 11.1% | 6.1% | 12% | B |
| 106 | Salinas CA | 159,134 | $92K | 13.6% | 4.7% | 39% | B |
| 107 | Fort Lauderdale FL | 188,677 | $83K | 15.0% | 5.3% | 26% | B |
| 108 | Menifee CA | 118,592 | $93K | 9.5% | 6.5% | 8% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 215 | Macon-Bibb County GA | 157,556 | $51K | 24.7% | 8.1% | 53% | 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 Salinas, the top three, the last and three more from California.
Salinas and the towns next door
Jobs & commute next door
Darker towns draw more of Salinas’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 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 Salinas: questions
What is the median household income in Salinas?
$91,908 (±$2,961) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $99,122 across California and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Salinas?
13.6%, against 12.0% across California and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Salinas?
27 minutes each way on average, against 29 across California and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Salinas work?
39% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Monterey (5%, 15 mi), San Jose (4%, 43 mi), Soledad (2%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Salinas walkable?
Salinas is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 14.1 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Salinas without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. 38% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Salinas, from the people who make the trip.
More of Salinas
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.