Palace Theater · Photo: Jon Roanhaus · CC BY-SA 4.0Kinsley has lower household incomes than 89% of U.S. towns
Jobs and income earn Kinsley D−; getting around on foot earns it B+. The poverty rate is 19.3%, where Kansas as a whole has 11.3%. For 4% of workers, the job is at home; Kansas has 12%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Kinsley: the figures worth knowing
Most jobs in Kinsley go to people who live here
Of the 489 jobs based in Kinsley, 52% are held by Kinsley residents. In most towns, people from elsewhere hold most of the local jobs. Day and night ↓
Kinsley’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Kinsley is Dodge City, 35 miles away as the crow flies. 10% of working residents (67) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
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 685 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What’s behind Kinsley’s Jobs & income grade
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Kinsley’s grade.
Unemployment (7.3%) is left out: Kinsley’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, Kinsley could be anywhere from D− to D.
Kinsley quiets down on a workday
On a workday 430 residents head out to work, 255 work right here, and 234 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Kinsley on a workday afternoon, 15% fewer than live here.
0.71 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
How far it is to work from Kinsley
About 26% 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.
10% of working residents work in Dodge City
Where Kinsley clocks in
10% of workers
5% 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.
What the 489 jobs in Kinsley are
489 jobs are based in Kinsley.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kinsley, 2013 → 2023: 598 → 489. 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 Kinsley’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Kinsley spends getting to work: about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kinsley workers work from home, vs 12% across Kansas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 594 commuters (the 4% who work from home are left out). Across Kansas: 85% 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.
In Kinsley, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Kinsley is more walkable than 69% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Kinsley 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 618 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). 8.4% of Kinsley households have no vehicle (Kansas 5.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Kinsley’s commuters take a bus or train.
U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800, and where Kinsley sits
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 52 | Lake Quivira KS | 1,005 | $178K | 3.8% | 0.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 56 | Lexington Township KS | 1,512 | $135K | 0.0% | 2.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 69 | Westwood KS | 1,720 | $118K | 1.9% | 2.4% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,007 | Lakeview WA | 1,584 | $46K | 18.5% | 13.7% | 1% | D− |
| 5,008 | Dover AR | 1,385 | $32K | 30.5% | 2.6% | 5% | D− |
| 5,009 | Kinsley KS | 1,312 | $49K | 19.3% | 7.3% | 37% | D− |
| 5,010 | Earlington KY | 1,262 | $38K | 39.3% | 4.7% | 1% | D− |
| 5,011 | Purdy MO | 1,062 | $37K | 36.9% | 12.3% | 5% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Kinsley, the top three, the last and three more from Kansas.
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 Kinsley: questions
What is the median household income in Kinsley?
$49,206 (±$2,153) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,275 across Kansas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kinsley?
19.3%, against 11.3% across Kansas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kinsley?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Kansas and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kinsley work?
37% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dodge City (10%, 35 mi), Wichita (5%, 114 mi), Larned (3%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Kinsley walkable?
Kinsley is more walkable than 69% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 7.9 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kinsley without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Kinsley, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kinsley
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.