Photo: Michael Rivera · CC BY-SA 4.0Carrabelle’s household incomes are lower than in 88% of U.S. towns
5% of workers work from home, where Florida as a whole has 16%. 21.6% of residents are in poverty, where Florida as a whole has 12.6%. Carrabelle grades D− for jobs and income and B− for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Carrabelle apart on work
Why Carrabelle gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Carrabelle is better than 2% of U.S. towns, #635 of 638 in Florida. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Carrabelle’s grade.
Unemployment (8.2%) is left out: Carrabelle’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, Carrabelle could be anywhere from D− to D.
Miles to work from Carrabelle
About 49% 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.
How a workday changes Carrabelle
On a workday 530 residents head out to work, 74 work right here, and 364 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.
0.73 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
9% of working residents work in Apalachicola
Where Carrabelle clocks in
9% of workers
9% 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.
Jobs in Carrabelle: what the 438 are
438 jobs are based in Carrabelle.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Carrabelle, 2013 → 2023: 552 → 438. 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 Carrabelle’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 24 minutes each way for Carrabelle’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Carrabelle workers work from home, vs 16% across Florida. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 319 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across Florida: 83% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Most trips from Carrabelle start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Carrabelle is more walkable than 53% of U.S. towns, #438 of 638 in Florida. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.6% across Florida, on an EPA index of 5.9.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 337 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 8.7% of Carrabelle households have no vehicle (Florida 6.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Carrabelle’s commuters take a bus or train.
U.S. towns of 1,800 to 3,500, and where Carrabelle sits
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 63 | Geneva FL | 3,441 | $133K | 0.6% | 0.4% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 65 | Windermere FL | 3,344 | $178K | 1.3% | 2.5% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 96 | Atlantis FL | 2,140 | $117K | 3.6% | 3.9% | 7% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,915 | Brundidge AL | 2,061 | $38K | 40.7% | 5.8% | 9% | D− |
| 4,916 | Marion AL | 2,602 | $36K | 20.1% | 10.1% | 27% | D− |
| 4,917 | Carrabelle FL | 2,572 | $50K | 21.6% | 8.2% | 12% | D− |
| 4,918 | Chattahoochee FL | 3,011 | $52K | 61.7% | 6.1% | 26% | D− |
| 4,919 | Homerville GA | 2,339 | $36K | 31.3% | 1.1% | 27% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,083 | 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 Carrabelle, the top three, the last and three more from Florida.
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 Carrabelle: questions
What is the median household income in Carrabelle?
$49,792 (±$11,924) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,568 across Florida and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Carrabelle?
21.6%, against 12.6% across Florida and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Carrabelle?
24 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Florida and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Carrabelle work?
12% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Apalachicola (9%, 21 mi), Tallahassee (9%, 48 mi), Jacksonville (3%, 183 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Carrabelle walkable?
Carrabelle is more walkable than 53% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 5.9 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Carrabelle without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Carrabelle, from the people who make the trip.
More of Carrabelle
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.