Photo: Ser_Amantio_di_Nicolao · CC BY-SA 3.0Households in Delmar earn less than those in 72% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 9.2% of residents, where Delaware as a whole has 10.4%. The two grades for Delmar are C for jobs and income and B− for walkability. Only 5% stay in Delmar for work; outside it, Salisbury is the main destination (16%, 7 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Inside Delmar’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Delmar is better than 30% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Delmar’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 20% of U.S. towns).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Delmar could be anywhere from D to B+.
How a workday changes Delmar
On a workday 918 residents head out to work, 52 work right here, and 798 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 (0.88 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 Delmar: the destinations
Where Delmar clocks in
16% of workers
6% 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.
What the 850 jobs in Delmar are
850 jobs are based in Delmar.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Delmar, 2013 → 2023: 669 → 850. 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 Delmar’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 29 minutes in Delmar
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Delmar workers work from home, vs 15% across Delaware. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 900 commuters (the 8% 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.
How many miles Delmar commutes
About 22% 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 Delmar, most people drive to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Delmar is more walkable than 50% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.2% 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 977 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% 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). 6.9% of Delmar households have no vehicle (Delaware 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Delmar’s commuters take a bus or train.
Delmar is 3,222nd of 4,995 U.S. towns of 1,700 to 3,200 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 415 | Townsend DE | 2,985 | $153K | 2.4% | 3.7% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 442 | Lincoln DE | 1,873 | $108K | 0.0% | 1.9% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 781 | Dover Base Housing DE | 2,962 | $82K | 2.2% | 12.4% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,220 | Huntington Township PA | 2,103 | $62K | 7.3% | 5.2% | 4% | C |
| 3,221 | Raoul GA | 2,253 | $45K | 9.7% | 4.3% | <1% | C |
| 3,222 | Delmar DE | 2,366 | $61K | 9.2% | 4.6% | 5% | C |
| 3,223 | Adams Township IN | 1,853 | $55K | 11.3% | 0.9% | 1% | C |
| 3,224 | Rainbow Park FL | 2,056 | $67K | 12.9% | 4.2% | 1% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 4,995 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Delmar, 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 Delmar: questions
What is the median household income in Delmar?
$61,250 (±$20,554) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $84,954 across Delaware and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Delmar?
9.2%, against 10.4% across Delaware and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Delmar?
29 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Delaware and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Delmar work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Salisbury (16%, 7 mi), Seaford (6%, 13 mi), Dover (4%, 48 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Delmar walkable?
Delmar is more walkable than 50% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 8.0 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Delmar without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Delmar, from the people who make the trip.
More of Delmar
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.