Photo: HowardSF at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.055% of Dahlonega’s residents are college students
About one in seven work in Dahlonega itself; outside it, Gainesville draws the most (7%, 19 miles). The two grades for Dahlonega are C+ for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Family incomes here are higher than in 76% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Dahlonega in brief
No single place dominates Dahlonega’s commute
The biggest draw, Gainesville, gets only 7% of working residents, and 65% work outside the top ten towns entirely. Dahlonega residents fan out across the region. The commute map ↓
Dahlonega is where the jobs are
Dahlonega has 4,543 jobs, 2.0 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Dahlonega 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 ↓
A young workforce
31% of Dahlonega’s working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
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.
How Dahlonega earns its Jobs & income grade
On family income, poverty and job access, Dahlonega is better than 37% of U.S. towns, #135 of 263 in Georgia. Family income holds Dahlonega’s grade up ($117,330, U.S. $99,999); the poverty rate pulls it down (21.9%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (30% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 21.9%, against 35.9% for all residents. Unemployment (8.2%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($117,330), since student households pull the household median down ($77,516).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Dahlonega could be anywhere from D to A−.
Where the people who work in Dahlonega live
Where Dahlonega clocks in
7% 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.
The workday shuffle in and out of Dahlonega
On a workday 1,879 residents head out to work, 358 work right here, and 4,185 people come in from elsewhere.
About 10,000 people are in Dahlonega on a workday afternoon, 29% more than live here.
2.0 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 2023, primary jobs.
About 21 minutes to work from Dahlonega
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Dahlonega workers work from home, vs 16% across Georgia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,288 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.
Most jobs in Dahlonega are in services
4,543 jobs are based in Dahlonega.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Dahlonega, 2013 → 2023: 4,079 → 4,543. 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 Dahlonega’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Dahlonega’s commute, mile by mile
About 21% 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.
Dahlonega is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Dahlonega is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns, #44 of 263 in Georgia. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 12.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.1% across Georgia, on an EPA index of 7.2.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 2,521 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). 0.8% of Dahlonega households have no vehicle (Georgia 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Dahlonega’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Dahlonega ranks: 2,132nd of 3,069 U.S. towns of 5,500 to 10,700
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 51 | Tyrone GA | 8,091 | $136K | 2.4% | 1.3% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 65 | Grayson GA | 5,569 | $131K | 3.5% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 155 | Senoia GA | 6,276 | $125K | 1.1% | 1.4% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,130 | Monroe Township IN | 8,997 | $67K | 8.9% | 6.1% | 12% | C+ |
| 2,131 | Jefferson Township OH | 5,982 | $73K | 12.9% | 12.2% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,132 | Dahlonega GA | 7,918 | $78K | 35.9% | 8.2% | 16% | C+ |
| 2,133 | Fruitland MD | 6,007 | $64K | 19.9% | 3.5% | 4% | C+ |
| 2,134 | North Kansas City MO | 5,613 | $50K | 9.1% | 9.5% | 13% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,069 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Dahlonega, 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.
- Students. 55% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Dahlonega: questions
What is the median household income in Dahlonega?
$77,516 (±$14,400) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,353 across Georgia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Dahlonega?
35.9% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 21.9%. Georgia: 13.4%.
How long is the commute from Dahlonega?
21 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Georgia and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Dahlonega work?
16% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Gainesville (7%, 19 mi), Alpharetta (3%, 36 mi), Atlanta (3%, 59 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Dahlonega walkable?
Dahlonega is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.2 out of 20, and 13% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Dahlonega without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 1% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Dahlonega, from the people who make the trip.
More of Dahlonega
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.