Photo: Michael Rivera · CC BY-SA 4.0Willacoochee has some of the lowest household incomes of any U.S. town
Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Poverty touches 27.7% of residents, next to 13.4% for Georgia as a whole. Willacoochee grades D− for jobs and income and D− for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Willacoochee and work: the main findings
Willacoochee makes and builds things
77% of the jobs based in Willacoochee are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Willacoochee residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 37%. The jobs ↓
Willacoochee is where the jobs are
Willacoochee has 847 jobs, 1.9 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Jobs in Willacoochee have more than doubled in ten years
Jobs based in Willacoochee went from 400 in 2013 to 847 in 2023, +112%. 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; with 447 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
What’s behind Willacoochee’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Willacoochee is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Willacoochee’s grade.
Unemployment (1.1%) is left out: Willacoochee’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, Willacoochee could be anywhere from D− to D.
Making and building: 77% of jobs based in Willacoochee
847 jobs are based in Willacoochee.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Willacoochee, 2013 → 2023: 400 → 847. 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 Willacoochee’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Willacoochee on a workday afternoon
On a workday 370 residents head out to work, 77 work right here, and 770 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,700 people are in Willacoochee on a workday afternoon, 32% more than live here.
1.9 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.
Who travels to work in Willacoochee, and from where
Where Willacoochee clocks in
20% of workers
5% of workers
2% 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.
Getting to work from Willacoochee takes about 26 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Willacoochee workers work from home, vs 16% across Georgia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 523 commuters (the 0% 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Willacoochee
About 28% 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.
Few in Willacoochee walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Willacoochee is more walkable than 4% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Willacoochee 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 523 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). 3.0% of Willacoochee households have no vehicle (Georgia 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Willacoochee’s commuters take a bus or train.
Willacoochee next to U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 145 | Winterville GA | 1,203 | $111K | 3.2% | 0.9% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 296 | Cataula GA | 1,522 | $124K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 299 | Clermont GA | 1,165 | $136K | 4.7% | 3.1% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,728 | Interlachen FL | 1,502 | $48K | 29.9% | 7.8% | 1% | D− |
| 4,729 | Broxton GA | 1,080 | $25K | 45.3% | 0.0% | 1% | D− |
| 4,730 | Willacoochee GA | 1,256 | $33K | 27.7% | 1.1% | 17% | D− |
| 4,731 | Logansport LA | 1,325 | $32K | 36.3% | 14.6% | 5% | D− |
| 4,732 | Pomeroy OH | 1,514 | $33K | 39.6% | 2.8% | 10% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Willacoochee, 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 Willacoochee: questions
What is the median household income in Willacoochee?
$32,750 (±$12,605) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,353 across Georgia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Willacoochee?
27.7%, against 13.4% across Georgia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Willacoochee?
26 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Georgia and 26 nationally. 0% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Willacoochee work?
17% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Douglas (20%, 16 mi), Pearson (5%, 12 mi), Nashville (2%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Willacoochee walkable?
Willacoochee is more walkable than 4% of U.S. towns (Walkability D−): an EPA walkability index of 4.3 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Willacoochee without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Willacoochee, from the people who make the trip.
More of Willacoochee
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.