Keeneland-Keeneland Racetrack · Photo: Jason Phillips (user:Wildcat~commonswiki) · CC BY 2.5Lexington has higher unemployment (4.9%) than 60% of U.S. towns
Transit is limited for a town this walkable: about 5.4 trips an hour stop near the typical resident at the evening peak, against 4.7 in Louisville. Jobs and income earn Lexington B−; getting around on foot earns it A. About two in three work in Lexington; the top destination outside it is Georgetown (3%, 16 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Lexington, in brief
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Lexington
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Lexington is better than 47% of U.S. towns, #58 of 142 in Kentucky. Job access by car holds Lexington’s grade up (ahead of 83% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (14.9%, U.S. 12.5%).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Lexington could be anywhere from C+ to B−.
Who commutes out of Lexington, and who commutes in
On a workday 45,293 residents head out to work, 90,632 work right here, and 104,352 people come in from elsewhere.
About 389,000 people are in Lexington on a workday afternoon, 18% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.43 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.
Where Lexington goes to work
Where Lexington clocks in
3% of workers
2% 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 kinds of work in Lexington
194,984 jobs are based in Lexington.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lexington, 2013 → 2023: 173,341 → 194,984. 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 Lexington’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Lexington takes about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lexington workers work from home, vs 10% across Kentucky. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 147,079 commuters (the 12% 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.
How far Lexington’s workers travel
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.
Lexington is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Lexington is more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns, #10 of 142 in Kentucky. Both inputs place Lexington 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 167,458 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 72% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 30% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 5.4 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 85% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 7.2% of Lexington households have no vehicle (Kentucky 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 2% of Lexington’s commuters take a bus or train.
These are town averages; neighborhoods differ.
Out of 62 U.S. towns of 231,000 to 445,000, Lexington comes 42nd on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Hempstead NY | 238,982 | $158K | 4.5% | 4.1% | 20% | A |
| 2 | Oyster Bay NY | 301,115 | $160K | 3.9% | 4.6% | 19% | A |
| 3 | Frisco TX | 236,955 | $150K | 3.6% | 4.6% | 14% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 40 | North Las Vegas NV | 296,653 | $80K | 12.1% | 8.5% | 16% | B− |
| 41 | Glendale AZ | 260,572 | $74K | 15.1% | 5.6% | 11% | B− |
| 42 | Lexington KY | 329,751 | $69K | 14.9% | 4.9% | 67% | B− |
| 43 | Norfolk VA | 231,013 | $66K | 16.5% | 5.7% | 36% | C+ |
| 44 | Bakersfield CA | 422,165 | $81K | 16.3% | 7.0% | 47% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 62 | Cleveland OH | 363,608 | $41K | 30.6% | 10.8% | 42% | C− |
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 Lexington, 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 Lexington: questions
What is the median household income in Lexington?
$69,479 (±$1,691) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,726 across Kentucky and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lexington?
14.9%, against 16.1% across Kentucky and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lexington?
21 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Kentucky and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lexington work?
67% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Georgetown (3%, 16 mi), Louisville (2%, 66 mi), Nicholasville (2%, 12 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lexington walkable?
Lexington is more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 11.1 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lexington without a car?
2% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 30% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lexington, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lexington
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.