Photo: JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ, M.D. · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.4 jobs for every working resident, most of Bear works elsewhere
Bear has 3,787 jobs, and 10,442 of its residents work somewhere. For jobs and income Bear is better than 62% of U.S. towns (B); for walkability it is more walkable than 70% of U.S. towns (B+). Only 3% work in Bear itself; outside it, Wilmington draws the most (10%, 11 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Bear and work: the main findings
Bear has added jobs fast
Jobs based in Bear went from 2,415 in 2013 to 3,787 in 2023, +57%. The jobs ↓
Bear empties out on a workday
About 16,000 people are in Bear on a workday afternoon, 30% fewer than the 22,000 who live here: 10,000 head out to work and 3,500 come in. 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; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
Why Bear gets the Jobs & income grade it does
Job access by car holds Bear’s grade up (ahead of 77% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down (5.9%, U.S. 5.2%). It also does well on household income and the poverty rate.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Bear could be anywhere from B− to A−.
What Bear’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Bear, 2013 → 2023: 2,415 → 3,787. 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 Bear’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The workday shuffle in and out of Bear
On a workday 10,106 residents head out to work, 336 work right here, and 3,451 people come in from elsewhere.
About 16,000 people are in Bear on a workday afternoon, 30% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
The places Bear commutes to
Where Bear clocks in
10% of workers
4% 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.
From Bear, about 24 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Bear workers work from home, vs 15% across Delaware. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 10,079 commuters (the 15% who work from home are left out). Across Delaware: 84% 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.
Bear’s commute, mile by mile
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.
Driving is how Bear gets around
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 4.9% across Delaware.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 11,867 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 64% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 14% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 4.9 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 84% 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). 8.7% of Bear households have no vehicle (Delaware 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Bear’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Bear ranks: 920th of 1,658 U.S. towns of 16,000 to 30,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Springfield VA | 22,532 | $163K | 1.9% | 1.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Mountain Brook AL | 21,661 | $201K | 3.2% | 1.2% | 8% | A+ |
| 3 | Lake Forest IL | 19,731 | $235K | 3.5% | 1.8% | 12% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 918 | Dixon CA | 21,116 | $103K | 10.2% | 5.9% | 13% | B |
| 919 | Auburndale FL | 21,369 | $78K | 9.6% | 3.5% | 7% | B |
| 920 | Bear DE | 22,370 | $92K | 8.7% | 5.9% | 3% | B |
| 921 | Coralville IA | 23,960 | $69K | 13.0% | 2.2% | 16% | B |
| 922 | Highland IN | 23,409 | $78K | 11.6% | 4.7% | 11% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 985 | Middletown DE | 25,798 | $113K | 8.4% | 8.0% | 15% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,658 | 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 Bear, the top three, the last and three more from Delaware.
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 Bear: questions
What is the median household income in Bear?
$91,687 (±$6,365) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $84,954 across Delaware and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Bear?
8.7%, against 10.4% across Delaware and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Bear?
24 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Delaware and 26 nationally. 15% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Bear work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Wilmington (10%, 11 mi), New Castle (4%, 7 mi), Newark (4%, 6 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Bear walkable?
Bear is more walkable than 70% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 11.2 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Bear without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. 14% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Bear, from the people who make the trip.
More of Bear
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.