Photo: Don Woods · CC BY-SA 3.0Selbyville draws 2,857 commuters a day, with 2.5 jobs for every working resident
4% of workers have no commute at all (Delaware 15%). 2,999 jobs are based in Selbyville; 1,182 of its residents have a job. Selbyville grades 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
Selbyville and work: the main findings
Selbyville makes and builds things
67% of the jobs based in Selbyville are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Selbyville residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 20%. The jobs ↓
Selbyville is where the jobs are
Selbyville has 2,999 jobs, 2.5 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 5,200 people are in town, 54% more than the 3,400 who live here. Day and night ↓
Many of the people who work in Selbyville live in another state
Salisbury, MD (14%), Ocean Pines, MD (2%) and Berlin, MD (1%) are among the top places Selbyville’s workers come from. Counting only the top ten home towns, 17% of the jobs here are held by people from out of state. The commute map ↓
The biggest group of Selbyville’s workers comes from Salisbury
406 of the people who work in Selbyville live in Salisbury, MD, 22 miles away, more than from any other town. The commute map ↓
Few Selbyville workers work from home
Only 4% of workers work from home, against 15% across Delaware. Almost everyone here travels to a job. Time on the road ↓
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.
Where Selbyville’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Selbyville is better than 54% of U.S. towns, #23 of 37 in Delaware. The poverty rate holds Selbyville’s grade up (4.3%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 18% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income and unemployment.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Selbyville could be anywhere from C− to A−.
Making and building: 67% of jobs based in Selbyville
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Selbyville, 2013 → 2023: 2,491 → 2,999. 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 Selbyville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Selbyville, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 1,040 residents head out to work and 142 work right here.
About 5,200 people are in Selbyville on a workday afternoon, 54% 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.
The towns that send workers to Selbyville
Where Selbyville clocks in
3% 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.
About 22 minutes each way for Selbyville’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Selbyville workers work from home, vs 15% across Delaware. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,358 commuters (the 4% 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.
Half of Selbyville commutes less than 11 miles
About 21% 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.
Selbyville 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, Selbyville is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns, #18 of 37 in Delaware. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.9% across Delaware, on an EPA index of 7.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,421 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 under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% 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). 2.7% of Selbyville households have no vehicle (Delaware 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Selbyville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Selbyville is 2,026th among 4,402 U.S. towns of 2,400 to 4,600
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 391 | Clayton DE | 4,527 | $107K | 5.3% | 1.3% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 405 | Greenville DE | 3,713 | $143K | 4.0% | 4.2% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 491 | Townsend DE | 2,985 | $153K | 2.4% | 3.7% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,024 | Rush Creek Township OH | 4,158 | $87K | 11.1% | 3.3% | 6% | B− |
| 2,025 | Tunkhannock Township PA | 3,962 | $83K | 7.4% | 3.6% | 13% | B− |
| 2,026 | Selbyville DE | 3,381 | $76K | 4.3% | 3.8% | 12% | B− |
| 2,027 | Plainview MN | 3,482 | $83K | 5.9% | 4.9% | 18% | B− |
| 2,028 | Archbold OH | 4,417 | $73K | 6.2% | 4.5% | 39% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,402 | 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 Selbyville, 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 Selbyville: questions
What is the median household income in Selbyville?
$75,592 (±$19,782) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $84,954 across Delaware and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Selbyville?
4.3%, against 10.4% across Delaware and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Selbyville?
22 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Delaware and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Selbyville work?
12% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Ocean City (5%, 8 mi), Salisbury (3%, 22 mi), Berlin (3%, 9 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Selbyville walkable?
Selbyville is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.7 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Selbyville without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Selbyville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Selbyville
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.