Photo: Nyttend · Public domainHouseholds in Liberty earn less than in almost any other U.S. town
The poverty rate is 32.1%, next to 16.1% for Kentucky as a whole. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Jobs and income earn Liberty D−; getting around on foot earns it A−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Liberty in brief
Liberty is where the jobs are
Liberty has 1,493 jobs, 2.4 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 2,900 people are in town, 43% more than the 2,000 who live here. Day and night ↓
Liberty’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Liberty is Danville, 24 miles away as the crow flies. 11% of working residents (68) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Fewer than half of Liberty workers earn over $40,000 a year
43% of Liberty’s working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 17% earn $1,250 a month or less. The jobs ↓
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 630 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Liberty’s grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Liberty is better than 3% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Liberty’s grade up (ahead of 27% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($28,704, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (2.6%) is left out: Liberty’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, Liberty could be anywhere from D− to D.
Who works in Liberty, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 487 residents head out to work, 143 work right here, and 1,350 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,900 people are in Liberty on a workday afternoon, 43% more than live here.
2.4 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Liberty
About 23% 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.
Liberty makes things: 28% of its jobs are in goods
1,493 jobs are based in Liberty.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Liberty, 2013 → 2023: 1,292 → 1,493. 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 Liberty’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The daily trip into Liberty
Where Liberty clocks in
11% 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.
About 19 minutes to work from Liberty
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Liberty workers work from home, vs 10% across Kentucky. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 492 commuters (the 6% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Liberty
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Liberty is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.1% across Kentucky, on an EPA index of 7.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 523 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). 28.0% of Liberty households have no vehicle (Kentucky 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Liberty’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Liberty compares with U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,700
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 29 | Pewee Valley KY | 1,668 | $157K | 3.0% | 2.7% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 60 | Audubon Park KY | 1,457 | $101K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 110 | Windy Hills KY | 2,476 | $131K | 5.1% | 1.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,234 | Grand Ronde OR | 1,549 | $53K | 24.8% | 4.0% | 25% | D− |
| 5,235 | Georgetown GA | 2,254 | $40K | 15.7% | 28.6% | 8% | D− |
| 5,236 | Liberty KY | 2,021 | $29K | 32.1% | 2.6% | 23% | D− |
| 5,237 | Jamestown KY | 1,901 | $21K | 44.4% | 16.2% | 15% | D− |
| 5,238 | Warsaw MO | 2,338 | $41K | 20.1% | 3.7% | 16% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,509 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Liberty, 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 Liberty: questions
What is the median household income in Liberty?
$28,704 (±$12,574) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,726 across Kentucky and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Liberty?
32.1%, against 16.1% across Kentucky and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Liberty?
19 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Kentucky and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Liberty work?
23% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Danville (11%, 24 mi), Lexington (3%, 56 mi), Lebanon (3%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Liberty walkable?
Liberty is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.6 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Liberty without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 28% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Liberty, from the people who make the trip.
More of Liberty
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.