Photo: Harrison Keely · CC BY 4.0A job hub: Lewes has 4.7 jobs per working resident, and 4,821 people come in to work
Working from home is the commute for 40% of workers (Delaware 15%). There are 4,992 jobs in Lewes, against 1,072 working residents. The two grades for Lewes are B for jobs and income and A for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Lewes at work: what stands out
Lewes fills up on a workday
Lewes has 4,992 jobs, 4.7 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 7,700 people are in town, more than double the 3,800 who live here. Day and night ↓
A lot of Lewes works from home
40% of Lewes workers work from home, against 15% across Delaware. Time on the road ↓
Nearly all the work in Lewes is services
92% of the jobs based here are in services, such as health care, schools and offices. Only 4% are in factories, building or farms. The jobs ↓
Lewes’ workforce skews older
39% of Lewes’ working residents are 55 or older. The jobs ↓
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.
Inside Lewes’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Lewes is better than 61% of U.S. towns, #20 of 37 in Delaware. Household income holds Lewes’ grade up ($96,393, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 41% of U.S. towns). It also does well on the poverty rate and unemployment.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Lewes could be anywhere from C− to A.
How many people are in Lewes by day
On a workday 901 residents head out to work and 171 work right here.
About 7,700 people are in Lewes on a workday afternoon, 102% more 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.
Commuting from Lewes: about 24 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lewes workers work from home, vs 15% across Delaware. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 650 commuters (the 40% 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.
Mostly health care, schools and offices in Lewes
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lewes, 2013 → 2023: 3,869 → 4,992. 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 Lewes’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where Lewes’ workforce comes from
Where Lewes clocks in
4% of workers
4% of workers
3% 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.
Half of Lewes commutes less than 14 miles
About 26% 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.
Lewes 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, Lewes is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns, #10 of 37 in Delaware. Both inputs place Lewes near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,087 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 50% 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 9.4 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 93% 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). 7.2% of Lewes households have no vehicle (Delaware 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Lewes’ commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Lewes is 1,667th of 4,264 U.S. towns of 2,700 to 5,200
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Mission Hills KS | 3,522 | $250K | 1.2% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Ho-Ho-Kus NJ | 4,313 | $250K | 0.0% | 1.7% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 390 | Clayton DE | 4,527 | $107K | 5.3% | 1.3% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 406 | Greenville DE | 3,713 | $143K | 4.0% | 4.2% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 493 | Townsend DE | 2,985 | $153K | 2.4% | 3.7% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,665 | West Providence Township PA | 3,064 | $80K | 5.4% | 2.4% | 11% | B |
| 1,666 | Carmel Valley Village CA | 4,785 | $156K | 4.8% | 6.3% | 11% | B |
| 1,667 | Lewes DE | 3,826 | $96K | 7.9% | 4.1% | 16% | B |
| 1,668 | Indialantic FL | 3,096 | $104K | 10.2% | 5.2% | 9% | B |
| 1,669 | Gravette AR | 3,889 | $68K | 5.8% | 3.5% | 10% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 4,264 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | 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 Lewes, 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 Lewes: questions
What is the median household income in Lewes?
$96,393 (±$32,008) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $84,954 across Delaware and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lewes?
7.9%, against 10.4% across Delaware and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lewes?
24 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Delaware and 26 nationally. 40% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lewes work?
16% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dover (4%, 33 mi), Rehoboth Beach (4%, 5 mi), Wilmington (3%, 69 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lewes walkable?
Lewes is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 9.8 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lewes without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 14% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lewes, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lewes
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.