Photo: Jeffrey Beall · CC BY 4.0Ridgway has 1.8 jobs for every working resident: 752 people commute in to work
Jobs & income C+: better than 40% of U.S. towns on income, poverty and job access.
Walkability A−: more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns.
Household incomes here are higher than in 61% of U.S. towns. Working residents average 27 minutes each way (Colorado 25, U.S. 26). About one in four work in Ridgway; the top destination outside it is Ouray (15%, 10 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work and commuting in Ridgway, in brief
Jobs in Ridgway have more than doubled in ten years
Jobs based in Ridgway went from 376 in 2013 to 877 in 2023, +133%. The jobs ↓
Ridgway is where the jobs are
Ridgway has 877 jobs, 1.8 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
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 482 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
What’s behind Ridgway’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Ridgway is better than 40% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Ridgway’s grade up (7.2%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 2% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (8.5%) is left out: Ridgway’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, Ridgway could be anywhere from C− to B.
What the 877 jobs in Ridgway are
877 jobs are based in Ridgway. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Ridgway’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ridgway, 2013 → 2023: 376 → 877. 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.
Ridgway fills up on a workday
On a workday 357 residents head out to work, 125 work right here, and 752 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,700 people are in Ridgway on a workday afternoon, 30% more than live here.
1.8 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.
Where Ridgway’s workers come from
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Ridgway clocks in
15% of workers
7% of workers
7% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
About 27 minutes each way, about the CO average
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ridgway workers work from home, vs 21% across Colorado. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 467 commuters (the 24% who work from home are left out). Across Colorado: 82% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
Half of Ridgway commutes less than 15 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
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.
Ridgway is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ridgway is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 16.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 6.4% across Colorado, on an EPA index of 7.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 613 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). 0.0% of Ridgway households have no vehicle (Colorado 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ridgway’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ridgway is 2,464th of 5,400 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800 on jobs and income
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Ridgway, the top three, the last and three more from Colorado.
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 7 | Columbine Valley CO | 1,684 | $250K | 0.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 317 | Aetna Estates CO | 1,010 | $75K | 1.1% | 0.5% | <1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 572 | Perry Park CO | 1,570 | $158K | 3.2% | 2.5% | 3% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,462 | Webb AL | 1,340 | $55K | 7.9% | 4.8% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,463 | Kibler AR | 1,029 | $59K | 9.5% | 3.6% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,464 | Ridgway CO | 1,324 | $84K | 7.2% | 8.5% | 26% | C+ |
| 2,465 | Fraser CO | 1,543 | $90K | 9.4% | 4.8% | 12% | C+ |
| 2,466 | Brookfield Township IL | 1,060 | $84K | 12.3% | 21.7% | 4% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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.
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 Ridgway: questions
What is the median household income in Ridgway?
$83,750 (±$20,693) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $95,470 across Colorado and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ridgway?
7.2%, against 9.4% across Colorado and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ridgway?
27 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Colorado and 26 nationally. 24% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ridgway work?
26% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Ouray (15%, 10 mi), Montrose (7%, 22 mi), Denver (7%, 190 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ridgway walkable?
Ridgway is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.3 out of 20, and 16% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ridgway without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ridgway, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ridgway
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.