Photo: Jeffrey Beall · CC BY 4.0Ordway has lower household incomes than 82% of U.S. towns
Ordway grades D− for jobs and income and A− for walkability. The poverty rate is 18.6%; Colorado has 9.4%. About one in seven stay in Ordway for work; outside it, La Junta is the main destination (10%, 20 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Ordway: the gist
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Ordway
On income, poverty and job access, Ordway is better than 5% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Ordway’s grade up ($54,583, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 3% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (3.5%) is left out: Ordway’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, Ordway could be anywhere from D− to C−.
How far Ordway goes to work
About 45% 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.
How many people are in Ordway by day
On a workday 239 residents head out to work, 46 work right here, and 247 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 (1.03 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.
Commuting out of Ordway: the destinations
Where Ordway clocks in
10% of workers
9% of workers
8% 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.
Jobs in Ordway: what the 293 are
293 jobs are based in Ordway.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ordway, 2013 → 2023: 261 → 293. 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 Ordway’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Ordway 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 Ordway workers work from home, vs 21% across Colorado. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 411 commuters (the 17% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Ordway
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ordway is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 6.4% across Colorado, on an EPA index of 7.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 494 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 3.7% of Ordway households have no vehicle (Colorado 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ordway’s commuters take a bus or train.
Where Ordway sits among U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 155 | Aetna Estates CO | 1,010 | $75K | 1.1% | 0.5% | <1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 509 | Loma CO | 1,350 | $141K | 5.9% | 0.0% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 539 | Dillon CO | 1,029 | $111K | 4.1% | 2.6% | 5% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,819 | Alto Bonito Heights TX | 1,121 | $36K | 81.0% | 0.0% | 0% | D− |
| 2,820 | Diaz AR | 1,200 | $49K | 25.1% | 7.2% | 6% | D− |
| 2,821 | Ordway CO | 1,053 | $55K | 18.6% | 3.5% | 16% | D− |
| 2,822 | Irishtown Township IL | 1,050 | $52K | 19.4% | 12.2% | 2% | D− |
| 2,823 | North Mahoning Township PA | 1,319 | $55K | 20.6% | 4.1% | 3% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 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 Ordway, 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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Ordway: questions
What is the median household income in Ordway?
$54,583 (±$14,128) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $95,470 across Colorado and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ordway?
18.6%, against 9.4% across Colorado and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ordway?
27 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Colorado and 26 nationally. 17% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ordway work?
16% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are La Junta (10%, 20 mi), Colorado Springs (9%, 70 mi), Pueblo (8%, 46 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ordway walkable?
Ordway is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.5 out of 20, and 8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ordway without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ordway, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ordway
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.