Photo: Calvin Beale · Public domainBuchanan draws 747 commuters a day, with 1.8 jobs for every working resident
Measured by household income, Buchanan is behind 85% of U.S. towns. 768 jobs are based in Buchanan; 418 of its residents have a job. For jobs and income Buchanan is better than 10% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 24% of U.S. towns (C−).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Buchanan, in brief
Income, poverty and work: Buchanan’s grade explained
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Buchanan’s grade.
Unemployment (10.0%) is left out: Buchanan’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, Buchanan could be anywhere from D− to C+.
In and out of Buchanan on a workday
On a workday 397 residents head out to work and 21 work right here.
About 1,400 people are in Buchanan on a workday afternoon, 34% 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.
Where the people who work in Buchanan live
Where Buchanan clocks in
11% of workers
6% 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.
Services make up most of the work in Buchanan
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Buchanan, 2013 → 2023: 908 → 768. 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 Buchanan’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 29 minutes each way, about the GA average
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Buchanan workers work from home, vs 16% across Georgia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 504 commuters (the 9% who work from home are left out). Across Georgia: 84% 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.
Where in the region Buchanan works
About 20% 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.
Most trips from Buchanan start in a car
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 0.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.1% across Georgia.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 553 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). 11.0% of Buchanan households have no vehicle (Georgia 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Buchanan’s commuters take a bus or train.
2,534th of 3,133: where Buchanan ranks among U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 87 | Winterville GA | 1,203 | $111K | 3.2% | 0.9% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 163 | Clermont GA | 1,165 | $136K | 4.7% | 3.1% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 408 | Robins AFB GA | 1,193 | $107K | 5.9% | 9.9% | 2% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,532 | Twisp WA | 1,126 | $60K | 13.3% | 9.9% | 15% | D |
| 2,533 | Keystone CO | 1,274 | $52K | 26.3% | 1.7% | 22% | D |
| 2,534 | Buchanan GA | 1,028 | $53K | 17.1% | 10.0% | 5% | D |
| 2,535 | Cole Camp MO | 1,169 | $47K | 12.7% | 1.5% | 17% | D |
| 2,536 | Sullivan ME | 1,281 | $60K | 13.6% | 6.0% | 8% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 0% | 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 Buchanan, the top three, the last and three more from Georgia.
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 Buchanan: questions
What is the median household income in Buchanan?
$52,500 (±$36,316) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,353 across Georgia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Buchanan?
17.1%, against 13.4% across Georgia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Buchanan?
29 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Georgia and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Buchanan work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Carrollton (11%, 16 mi), Bremen (6%, 6 mi), Tallapoosa (6%, 8 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Buchanan walkable?
Buchanan is more walkable than 24% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 6.3 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Buchanan without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Buchanan, from the people who make the trip.
More of Buchanan
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.