Henry Asbury House · Photo: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD · CC BY-SA 3.0Clarkesville draws 1,583 commuters a day, with 2.1 jobs for every working resident
4% of workers work from home; Georgia has 16%. 1,639 jobs are based in Clarkesville; 795 of its residents have a job. Jobs and income earn Clarkesville C+; getting around on foot earns it B.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Clarkesville
Clarkesville is where the jobs are
Clarkesville has 1,639 jobs, 2.1 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
31% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
Commutes from Clarkesville are quick
The average trip to work takes 21 minutes, against 28 across Georgia. That’s about 54 hours a year less on the road than the typical Georgia worker. 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; with 795 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Clarkesville
On income, poverty and job access, Clarkesville is better than 37% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Clarkesville’s grade.
Unemployment (0.7%) is left out: Clarkesville’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, Clarkesville could be anywhere from C− to B.
The daily flow of workers through Clarkesville
On a workday 739 residents head out to work and 56 work right here.
About 3,000 people are in Clarkesville on a workday afternoon, 39% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Clarkesville
About 31% 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.
The daily trip from Clarkesville: about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Clarkesville workers work from home, vs 16% across Georgia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 640 commuters (the 3% 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.
The towns that send workers to Clarkesville
Where Clarkesville clocks in
7% 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 Clarkesville’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Clarkesville, 2013 → 2023: 1,335 → 1,639. 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 Clarkesville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Driving is how Clarkesville gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Clarkesville is more walkable than 58% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.2% 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 663 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). 7.2% of Clarkesville households have no vehicle (Georgia 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Clarkesville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Clarkesville is 3,149th among 5,641 U.S. towns of 1,500 to 3,000
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Berkeley Lake GA | 2,034 | $166K | 1.6% | 1.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 121 | Fairplay GA | 1,881 | $120K | 1.6% | 1.2% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 210 | Isle of Hope GA | 2,053 | $105K | 1.4% | 1.3% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,147 | West Hill OH | 2,425 | $40K | 14.5% | 3.7% | 1% | C+ |
| 3,148 | Biltmore TN | 1,846 | $53K | 9.6% | 5.4% | <1% | C+ |
| 3,149 | Clarkesville GA | 2,186 | $74K | 13.1% | 0.7% | 7% | C+ |
| 3,150 | Daleville IN | 1,706 | $51K | 11.2% | 5.9% | 9% | C+ |
| 3,151 | North Beach MD | 2,179 | $84K | 5.1% | 17.1% | 3% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,641 | 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 Clarkesville, 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 Clarkesville: questions
What is the median household income in Clarkesville?
$73,798 (±$12,656) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,353 across Georgia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Clarkesville?
13.1%, against 13.4% across Georgia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Clarkesville?
21 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Georgia and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Clarkesville work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Gainesville (7%, 28 mi), Cornelia (6%, 6 mi), Demorest (4%, 3 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Clarkesville walkable?
Clarkesville is more walkable than 58% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 8.9 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Clarkesville without a car?
<1% 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 Clarkesville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Clarkesville
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.