Lake Butler Woman's Club · Photo: Ebyabe · CC BY 2.5Household incomes in Lake Butler are lower than in 88% of U.S. towns
5% of workers work from home, next to 16% for Florida as a whole. 24.7% of residents live below the poverty line, against 12.6% across Florida. Lake Butler grades D for jobs and income and C+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Lake Butler in brief
Lake Butler’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Lake Butler is Jacksonville, 46 miles away as the crow flies. 13% of working residents (104) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Lake Butler is where the jobs are
Lake Butler has 1,330 jobs, 1.7 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 805 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Lake Butler
On income, poverty and job access, Lake Butler is better than 6% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Lake Butler’s grade up (ahead of 23% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (12.3%) is left out: Lake Butler’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, Lake Butler could be anywhere from D− to C−.
How far it is to work from Lake Butler
About 25% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
The daily commute in and out of Lake Butler
On a workday 676 residents head out to work, 129 work right here, and 1,201 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,400 people are in Lake Butler on a workday afternoon, 27% more than live here.
1.7 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 2024, primary jobs.
Who travels to work in Lake Butler, and from where
Where Lake Butler clocks in
13% of workers
13% 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.
What Lake Butler’s employers do
1,330 jobs are based in Lake Butler.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lake Butler, 2014 → 2024: 1,328 → 1,330. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Lake Butler’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The daily trip from Lake Butler: about 26 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lake Butler workers work from home, vs 16% across Florida. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 451 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.
In Lake Butler, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Lake Butler is more walkable than 42% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Lake Butler 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 474 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). 6.8% of Lake Butler households have no vehicle (Florida 6.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Lake Butler’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Lake Butler ranks: 5,317th of 5,921 U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,600
| # | 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 108 | Atlantis FL | 2,140 | $117K | 3.6% | 3.9% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 135 | Old Miakka FL | 1,818 | $137K | 2.0% | 0.0% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Lake Mary Jane FL | 1,792 | $146K | 0.0% | 3.1% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,315 | Rutland Township OH | 2,084 | $40K | 17.3% | 6.1% | 3% | D |
| 5,316 | Malta Township OH | 1,670 | $54K | 17.6% | 0.0% | 5% | D |
| 5,317 | Lake Butler FL | 1,921 | $50K | 24.7% | 12.3% | 16% | D |
| 5,318 | Mount Vernon KY | 2,455 | $39K | 32.7% | 3.5% | 26% | D |
| 5,319 | Kimberling City MO | 2,345 | $50K | 19.5% | 7.0% | 8% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,921 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 7% | 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 Lake Butler, 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 2024, 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 Lake Butler: questions
What is the median household income in Lake Butler?
$49,922 (±$12,709) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,568 across Florida and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lake Butler?
24.7%, against 12.6% across Florida and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lake Butler?
26 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Florida and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lake Butler work?
16% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Jacksonville (13%, 46 mi), Gainesville (13%, 23 mi), Starke (3%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Lake Butler walkable?
Lake Butler is more walkable than 42% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 6.6 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lake Butler without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lake Butler, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lake Butler
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.