Photo: 12george1 · CC BY-SA 4.0Palm Springs has 3.0 jobs for every working resident: 31,737 people commute in to work
For 7% of workers, the job is at home, where Florida as a whole has 16%. Employers in Palm Springs report 32,755 jobs, against 11,100 working residents. Jobs and income earn Palm Springs C+; getting around on foot earns it A.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Palm Springs, in a few figures
Palm Springs is where the jobs are
Palm Springs has 32,755 jobs, 3.0 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 50,000 people are in town, 77% more than the 28,000 who live here. Day and night ↓
Nearly all the work in Palm Springs is services
92% of the jobs based here are in services, such as health care, schools and offices. Only 3% are in factories, building or farms. The jobs ↓
Palm Springs draws workers from far and wide
The 32,755 jobs in Palm Springs are filled from a wide area. The ten biggest home towns of its workers supply 35%; the other 62% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
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.
Income, poverty and work: Palm Springs’ grade explained
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Palm Springs is better than 36% of U.S. towns, #447 of 638 in Florida. Job access by car holds Palm Springs’ grade up (ahead of 88% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down (7.0%, U.S. 5.2%).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Palm Springs could be anywhere from C to B.
The daily flow of workers through Palm Springs
On a workday 10,082 residents head out to work and 1,018 work right here.
About 50,000 people are in Palm Springs on a workday afternoon, 77% 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 2024, primary jobs.
Mostly health care, schools and offices in Palm Springs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Palm Springs, 2014 → 2024: 27,716 → 32,755. 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 Palm Springs’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where Palm Springs’s workers come from
Where Palm Springs clocks in
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.
A commute of about 26 minutes in Palm Springs
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Palm Springs workers work from home, vs 16% across Florida. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 12,945 commuters (the 7% 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.
How far it is to work from Palm Springs
About 16% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Palm Springs
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Palm Springs is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns, #132 of 638 in Florida. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 4.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, above the 3.6% across Florida.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 13,865 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). Nearly all residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 34% 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). 7.3% of Palm Springs households have no vehicle (Florida 6.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 3% of Palm Springs’ commuters take a bus or train.
Palm Springs places 1,135th of 1,409 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 20,000 to 38,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Springfield VA | 22,532 | $163K | 1.9% | 1.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Mountain Brook AL | 21,661 | $201K | 3.2% | 1.2% | 8% | A+ |
| 3 | Upper Dublin Township PA | 27,258 | $168K | 3.2% | 1.9% | 8% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 89 | Jacksonville Beach FL | 23,615 | $121K | 4.8% | 1.8% | 14% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 103 | Palmetto Bay FL | 24,886 | $142K | 5.8% | 2.7% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 128 | Keystone FL | 25,858 | $161K | 3.9% | 3.2% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,133 | Emporia KS | 24,137 | $53K | 17.8% | 2.0% | 59% | C+ |
| 1,134 | Imperial CA | 22,330 | $90K | 12.5% | 8.2% | 11% | C+ |
| 1,135 | Palm Springs FL | 28,303 | $62K | 15.4% | 7.0% | 9% | C+ |
| 1,136 | Candler-McAfee GA | 20,905 | $65K | 14.7% | 12.2% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,137 | Riverside OH | 24,706 | $61K | 15.3% | 6.6% | 4% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,409 | Barstow CA | 24,804 | $53K | 23.1% | 11.9% | 16% | 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 Palm Springs, the top three, the last and three more from Florida.
Next door to Palm Springs
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Palm Springs workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Springs | – | C+ | A | 26 min | $61,739 |
| Acacia Villas | under 3% | — | — | — | — |
| Kenwood Estates | under 3% | C+ | A+ | 27 min | $66,477 |
Same-state neighbors only. Acacia Villas: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Palm Springs’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Palm Springs: questions
What is the median household income in Palm Springs?
$61,739 (±$4,395) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,568 across Florida and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Palm Springs?
15.4%, against 12.6% across Florida and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Palm Springs?
26 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Florida and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Palm Springs work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are West Palm Beach (14%, 8 mi), Boynton Beach (4%, 8 mi), Boca Raton (3%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Palm Springs walkable?
Palm Springs is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 13.0 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Palm Springs without a car?
3% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 34% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Palm Springs, from the people who make the trip.
More of Palm Springs
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.