Photo: Nyttend · Public domainClay City’s household incomes are among the lowest in the country
The two grades for Clay City are D− for jobs and income and D for walkability. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Below the poverty line: 39.5% of residents, where Kentucky as a whole has 16.1%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Clay City apart on work
What’s behind Clay City’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Clay City is better than 4% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Clay City’s grade up (ahead of 34% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($23,816, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (5.3%) is left out: Clay City’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, Clay City could be anywhere from D− to D.
Short hops and long hauls from Clay City
About 19% 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.
Who commutes out of Clay City, and who commutes in
On a workday 425 residents head out to work, 13 work right here, and 264 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,000 people are in Clay City on a workday afternoon, 14% fewer than live here.
0.63 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 2024, primary jobs.
18% of working residents work in Lexington
Where Clay City clocks in
15% of workers
11% 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 277 jobs based in Clay City
277 jobs are based in Clay City.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Clay City, 2014 → 2024: 185 → 277. 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 Clay City’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 22 minutes to work from Clay City
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Clay City workers work from home, vs 10% across Kentucky. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 344 commuters (the 3% 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.
Few in Clay City walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Clay City is more walkable than 13% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Clay City 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 356 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). 17.7% of Clay City households have no vehicle (Kentucky 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Clay City’s commuters take a bus or train.
Where Clay City sits among U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 50 | Audubon Park KY | 1,457 | $101K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 71 | Coldstream KY | 1,325 | $109K | 2.8% | 0.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 89 | Heritage Creek KY | 1,244 | $100K | 2.4% | 1.6% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,960 | Mount Gay-Shamrock WV | 1,166 | $52K | 27.5% | 3.5% | 12% | D− |
| 3,961 | Cairo IL | 1,515 | $42K | 19.0% | 14.6% | 17% | D− |
| 3,962 | Clay City KY | 1,174 | $24K | 39.5% | 5.3% | 3% | D− |
| 3,963 | Falls City OR | 1,042 | $51K | 19.8% | 7.4% | 1% | D− |
| 3,964 | Terra Alta WV | 1,413 | $51K | 29.1% | 9.5% | 4% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Clay City, 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 2024, 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 Clay City: questions
What is the median household income in Clay City?
$23,816 (±$7,099) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,726 across Kentucky and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Clay City?
39.5%, against 16.1% across Kentucky and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Clay City?
22 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Kentucky and 26 nationally. 3% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Clay City work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lexington (18%, 31 mi), Stanton (15%, 4 mi), Winchester (11%, 17 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Clay City walkable?
Clay City is more walkable than 13% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 4.8 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Clay City without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 18% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Clay City, from the people who make the trip.
More of Clay City
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.