Photo: FatCat96 · CC BY-SA 4.0Households in Jenkins earn less than in almost any other U.S. town
Measured by household income, Jenkins is among the lowest-earning towns in the country. 32.3% of residents live below the poverty line, against 16.1% across Kentucky. The two grades for Jenkins are 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
What sets Jenkins apart on work
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Jenkins
On income, poverty and job access, Jenkins is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Jenkins’ grade.
Unemployment (6.0%) is left out: Jenkins’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Jenkins stays D−.
How far Jenkins goes to work
About 32% 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.
Jenkins by day and by night
On a workday 503 residents head out to work, 32 work right here, and 225 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,500 people are in Jenkins on a workday afternoon, 16% fewer than live here.
0.48 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.
15% of working residents work in Whitesburg
Where Jenkins clocks in
8% 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.
Inside Jenkins’ 257 jobs
257 jobs are based in Jenkins.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Jenkins, 2013 → 2023: 294 → 257. 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 Jenkins’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Jenkins takes about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Jenkins workers work from home, vs 10% across Kentucky. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 392 commuters (the 17% 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.
Jenkins is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Jenkins is more walkable than 7% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Jenkins 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 470 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). 12.2% of Jenkins households have no vehicle (Kentucky 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Jenkins’ commuters take a bus or train.
How Jenkins compares with U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 35 | Pewee Valley KY | 1,668 | $157K | 3.0% | 2.7% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 62 | Audubon Park KY | 1,457 | $101K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 101 | Coldstream KY | 1,325 | $109K | 2.8% | 0.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,674 | Vernon AL | 1,823 | $28K | 34.8% | 12.1% | 26% | D− |
| 5,675 | Calico Rock AR | 2,003 | $27K | 30.0% | 1.9% | 23% | D− |
| 5,676 | Jenkins KY | 1,733 | $27K | 32.3% | 6.0% | 6% | D− |
| 5,677 | Evart MI | 1,789 | $34K | 35.1% | 4.8% | 32% | D− |
| 5,678 | Shelby MS | 1,788 | $26K | 55.6% | 13.4% | 2% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,760 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Jenkins, the top three, the last and three more from Kentucky.
Jenkins and the towns next door
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Jenkins workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jenkins | – | D− | D | 24 min | $27,200 |
| Payne Gap | under 2% | — | — | — | — |
| McRoberts | under 2% | — | — | — | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Payne Gap and McRoberts: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Jenkins’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Jenkins: questions
What is the median household income in Jenkins?
$27,200 (±$8,046) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,726 across Kentucky and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Jenkins?
32.3%, against 16.1% across Kentucky and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Jenkins?
24 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Kentucky and 26 nationally. 17% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Jenkins work?
6% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Whitesburg (15%, 10 mi), Pikeville (8%, 22 mi), Lexington (6%, 116 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Jenkins walkable?
Jenkins is more walkable than 7% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.0 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Jenkins without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 12% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Jenkins, from the people who make the trip.
More of Jenkins
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.