Photo: Conn, Kit at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0Bethany Beach has 3.7 jobs for every working resident: 907 people commute in to work
Jobs & income A−: better than 77% of U.S. towns on income, poverty and job access.
Walkability A: more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns.
Household incomes here are higher than in 87% of U.S. towns. Working residents average 23 minutes each way (Delaware 26, U.S. 26). About one in ten work in Bethany Beach; the top destination outside it is Dover (5%, 50 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Bethany Beach
Bethany Beach has far more jobs than workers
Bethany Beach has 931 jobs, 3.7 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 1,800 people are in town, 62% more than the 1,100 who live here. Day and night ↓
Jobs in Bethany Beach have more than doubled in ten years
Jobs based in Bethany Beach went from 389 in 2013 to 931 in 2023, +139%. The jobs ↓
A big share show a job far from home
41% 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 ↓
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 251 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 Bethany Beach’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Bethany Beach is better than 77% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Bethany Beach’s grade up (1.7%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 19% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (1.7%) is left out: Bethany Beach’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, Bethany Beach could be anywhere from B+ to A−.
Bethany Beach nearly doubles on a workday
On a workday 227 residents head out to work, 24 work right here, and 907 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,800 people are in Bethany Beach on a workday afternoon, 62% more than live here.
3.7 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.
What the 931 jobs in Bethany Beach are
931 jobs are based in Bethany Beach. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Bethany Beach’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Bethany Beach, 2013 → 2023: 389 → 931. 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.
Half of Bethany Beach commutes less than 31 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
About 41% 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.
Where Bethany Beach’s workers come from
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Bethany Beach clocks in
5% of workers
3% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
About 23 minutes each way, quicker than most of Delaware
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Bethany Beach workers work from home, vs 15% across Delaware. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 221 commuters (the 35% who work from home are left out). Across Delaware: 84% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
Bethany Beach 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, Bethany Beach is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 19.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.9% across Delaware, on an EPA index of 8.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 342 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 22% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 7% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 0.7 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 53% 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). 6.7% of Bethany Beach households have no vehicle (Delaware 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Bethany Beach’s commuters take a bus or train.
Bethany Beach is 417th of 3,771 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500 on jobs and income
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Bethany Beach, the top three, the last and three more from Delaware.
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 209 | Bellefonte DE | 1,313 | $91K | 5.5% | 4.9% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 415 | Clermont IN | 1,403 | $82K | 8.6% | 1.9% | 1% | A− |
| 416 | Roland IA | 1,344 | $79K | 1.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A− |
| 417 | Bethany Beach DE | 1,104 | $117K | 1.7% | 1.7% | 10% | A− |
| 418 | Rapidan Township MN | 1,024 | $92K | 4.1% | 1.8% | <1% | A− |
| 419 | Cooperstown WI | 1,292 | $88K | 4.5% | 2.7% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 622 | Rehoboth Beach DE | 1,309 | $138K | 8.7% | 6.7% | 22% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 859 | Frederica DE | 1,155 | $81K | 6.5% | 3.4% | 0% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Bethany Beach: questions
What is the median household income in Bethany Beach?
$117,159 (±$17,650) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $84,954 across Delaware and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Bethany Beach?
1.7%, against 10.4% across Delaware and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Bethany Beach?
23 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Delaware and 26 nationally. 35% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Bethany Beach work?
10% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dover (5%, 50 mi), Wilmington (3%, 86 mi), Ocean View (2%, 2 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Bethany Beach walkable?
Bethany Beach is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.8 out of 20, and 19% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Bethany Beach without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 7% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Bethany Beach, from the people who make the trip.
More of Bethany Beach
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.