Gunnison River Bridge I · Photo: Jeffrey Beall · CC BY-SA 3.026% of Gunnison’s residents are college students
Gunnison grades C− for jobs and income and A+ for walkability. For a town this walkable, transit is thin: about 2.7 trips an hour at the evening peak near the typical resident, next to 13.2 in Denver. Working from home is the commute for 8% of workers, next to 21% for Colorado as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Gunnison
Commutes from Gunnison are quick
The average trip to work takes 18 minutes, against 25 across Colorado. That’s about 54 hours a year less on the road than the typical Colorado worker. Time on the road ↓
A young workforce
32% of Gunnison’s working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
A big share show a job far from home
35% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
Gunnison’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Gunnison is Crested Butte, 22 miles away as the crow flies. 8% of working residents (277) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
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.
What’s behind Gunnison’s Jobs & income grade
Family income holds Gunnison’s grade up ($87,679, U.S. $99,999); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 13% of U.S. towns).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (15% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 13.8%, against 22.1% for all residents. Unemployment (6.3%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($87,679), since student households pull the household median down ($62,189).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Gunnison could be anywhere from D− to B.
About 18 minutes each way, quicker than most of Colorado
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Gunnison workers work from home, vs 21% across Colorado. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 3,469 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Colorado: 82% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Inside Gunnison’s 3,437 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Gunnison, 2013 → 2023: 2,580 → 3,437. 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 Gunnison’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many miles Gunnison commutes
About 35% 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.
In and out of Gunnison on a workday
On a workday 1,963 residents head out to work, 1,413 work right here, and 2,024 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 (1.02 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.
Where Gunnison goes to work
Where Gunnison clocks in
4% of workers
3% 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.
Gunnison is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Gunnison is among the most walkable U.S. towns, #2 of 159 in Colorado. Both inputs place Gunnison 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 3,763 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, 15% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 2.7 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 73% 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). 2.2% of Gunnison households have no vehicle (Colorado 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 8% of Gunnison’s commuters take a bus or train.
Gunnison is 2,642nd of 3,168 U.S. towns of 4,800 to 9,200 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 40 | Todd Creek CO | 5,379 | $194K | 0.5% | 1.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 141 | Mead CO | 7,042 | $125K | 1.4% | 2.3% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 144 | Stonegate CO | 8,906 | $159K | 3.2% | 3.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,640 | Orlovista FL | 6,890 | $47K | 20.0% | 11.7% | 1% | C− |
| 2,641 | Lakeport CA | 5,059 | $69K | 12.9% | 6.3% | 28% | C− |
| 2,642 | Gunnison CO | 6,836 | $62K | 22.1% | 6.3% | 42% | C− |
| 2,643 | Tarrant AL | 5,639 | $42K | 24.2% | 7.2% | 4% | C− |
| 2,644 | Barnesville GA | 6,329 | $57K | 14.0% | 5.6% | 11% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,168 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Gunnison, the top three, the last and three more from Colorado.
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. 26% 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 Gunnison: questions
What is the median household income in Gunnison?
$62,189 (±$14,147) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $95,470 across Colorado and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Gunnison?
22.1% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 13.8%. Colorado: 9.4%.
How long is the commute from Gunnison?
18 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Colorado and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Gunnison work?
42% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Crested Butte (8%, 22 mi), Denver (4%, 138 mi), Mount Crested Butte (3%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Gunnison walkable?
Gunnison is among the most walkable U.S. towns (Walkability A+): an EPA walkability index of 14.6 out of 20, and 22% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Gunnison without a car?
8% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. 15% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Gunnison, from the people who make the trip.
More of Gunnison
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.