Photo: Dwight Burdette · CC BY 3.0Households in Berea earn less than those in 75% of U.S. towns
17.9% of residents live below the poverty line; Kentucky has 16.1%. Berea grades C for jobs and income and A− for walkability. About one in four work in Berea; the top destination outside it is Richmond (19%, 10 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Berea stands out on work
Where Berea’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Berea is better than 29% of U.S. towns, #82 of 142 in Kentucky. Unemployment holds Berea’s grade up (4.2%, U.S. 5.2%); the poverty rate pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Berea could be anywhere from C− to C+.
The towns that employ Berea’s residents
Where Berea clocks in
19% 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.
Who commutes out of Berea, and who commutes in
On a workday 4,838 residents head out to work, 1,554 work right here, and 6,557 people come in from elsewhere.
About 18,000 people are in Berea on a workday afternoon, 10% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.27 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Making and building: 32% of jobs based in Berea
8,111 jobs are based in Berea.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Berea, 2013 → 2023: 8,883 → 8,111. 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 Berea’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from Berea: about 23 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Berea workers work from home, vs 10% across Kentucky. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 6,073 commuters (the 11% who work from home are left out). Across Kentucky: 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.
Berea’s commute, mile by mile
About 18% 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.
Berea is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Berea is more walkable than 78% of U.S. towns, #30 of 142 in Kentucky. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 10.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.1% across Kentucky, on an EPA index of 7.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 6,814 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). 6.5% of Berea households have no vehicle (Kentucky 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Berea’s commuters take a bus or train.
Berea is 1,523rd of 1,888 U.S. towns of 12,000 to 22,000 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plain Township OH | 13,257 | $219K | 2.1% | 0.8% | 10% | A+ |
| 2 | Rogers MN | 15,606 | $159K | 1.9% | 1.2% | 10% | A+ |
| 3 | Trophy Club TX | 13,695 | $201K | 2.1% | 2.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 289 | Burlington KY | 18,008 | $109K | 5.5% | 2.5% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 428 | Fort Thomas KY | 17,142 | $104K | 6.1% | 3.5% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 680 | Mount Washington KY | 18,989 | $96K | 5.3% | 4.6% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,521 | St. Marys PA | 12,253 | $67K | 7.8% | 7.7% | 55% | C |
| 1,522 | Cohoes NY | 18,518 | $61K | 25.9% | 5.8% | 7% | C |
| 1,523 | Berea KY | 16,662 | $59K | 17.9% | 4.2% | 24% | C |
| 1,524 | Pipe Creek Township IN | 12,354 | $63K | 14.9% | 5.6% | 20% | C |
| 1,525 | Pineville LA | 13,967 | $50K | 21.1% | 3.3% | 14% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 1,888 | Douglas AZ | 16,038 | $42K | 27.8% | 12.3% | 29% | 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 Berea, the top three, the last and three more from Kentucky.
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 Berea: questions
What is the median household income in Berea?
$59,495 (±$5,110) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,726 across Kentucky and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Berea?
17.9%, against 16.1% across Kentucky and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Berea?
23 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Kentucky and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Berea work?
24% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Richmond (19%, 10 mi), Lexington (16%, 32 mi), Louisville (2%, 85 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Berea walkable?
Berea is more walkable than 78% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.0 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Berea without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Berea, from the people who make the trip.
More of Berea
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.