Photo: Tomás Del Coro from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0Mountain Home AFB has lower family incomes than 67% of U.S. towns
5% of workers work from home, where Idaho as a whole has 13%. Not counting college students, poverty touches 2.2% of residents, next to 9.8% for Idaho as a whole. For jobs and income Mountain Home AFB is better than 42% of U.S. towns (C+); for walkability it is more walkable than 72% of U.S. towns (B+).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Mountain Home AFB
Mountain Home AFB’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Mountain Home AFB is Boise City, 42 miles away as the crow flies. 18% of working residents (54) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
A big share show a job far from home
51% 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 Mountain Home AFB are quick
The average trip to work takes 11 minutes, against 22 across Idaho. That’s about 84 hours a year less on the road than the typical Idaho worker. Time on the road ↓
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; with 307 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Jobs & income in Mountain Home AFB: the grade in detail
The poverty rate holds Mountain Home AFB’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 3% of U.S. towns).
14% of Mountain Home AFB’s residents are college students, and off-campus students count in the Census poverty figures. Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (17% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 2.2%, against 2.2% for all residents. Unemployment (5.8%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($80,313), since student households pull the household median down ($74,196).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Mountain Home AFB could be anywhere from C− to B.
Miles to work from Mountain Home AFB
About 51% 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.
About 11 minutes each way, quicker than most of Idaho
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Mountain Home AFB workers work from home, vs 13% across Idaho. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,809 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across Idaho: 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.
How a workday changes Mountain Home AFB
On a workday 300 residents head out to work, 7 work right here, and 259 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.87 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
18% of working residents work in Boise City
Where Mountain Home AFB clocks in
18% of workers
10% 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.
Most jobs in Mountain Home AFB are in services
266 jobs are based in Mountain Home AFB.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Mountain Home AFB, 2014 → 2024: 225 → 266. 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 Mountain Home AFB’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Driving is how Mountain Home AFB gets around
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 10.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.5% across Idaho, on an EPA index of 6.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,905 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). 1.6% of Mountain Home AFB households have no vehicle (Idaho 3.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Mountain Home AFB’s commuters take a bus or train.
Mountain Home AFB places 2,519th of 4,316 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 2,300 to 4,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 666 | Hidden Springs ID | 3,378 | $163K | 7.2% | 4.3% | 4% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 682 | Dalton Gardens ID | 2,496 | $80K | 4.6% | 1.1% | 6% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,050 | Ketchum ID | 3,643 | $93K | 5.2% | 0.0% | 36% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,517 | Deerfield Township NJ | 3,251 | $85K | 10.6% | 8.2% | 6% | C+ |
| 2,518 | Madison Township OH | 2,821 | $88K | 9.2% | 7.5% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,519 | Mountain Home AFB ID | 3,219 | $74K | 2.2% | 5.8% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,520 | Indianola WA | 3,468 | $99K | 8.2% | 5.0% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,521 | Pendleton SC | 3,739 | $62K | 21.8% | 2.5% | 4% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,316 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 19% | 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 Mountain Home AFB, the top three, the last and three more from Idaho.
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.
- Students. 14% 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 Mountain Home AFB: questions
What is the median household income in Mountain Home AFB?
$74,196 (±$16,240) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,800 across Idaho and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Mountain Home AFB?
2.2% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 2.2%. Idaho: 10.6%.
How long is the commute from Mountain Home AFB?
11 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Idaho and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Mountain Home AFB work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Boise City (18%, 42 mi), Mountain Home (10%, 10 mi), Meridian (7%, 47 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Mountain Home AFB walkable?
Mountain Home AFB is more walkable than 72% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.3 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Mountain Home AFB without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Mountain Home AFB, from the people who make the trip.
More of Mountain Home AFB
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.