Photo: J654567 · CC BY-SA 3.0Pineville has some of the lowest household incomes of any U.S. town
34.0% of residents are in poverty, where Kentucky as a whole has 16.1%. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Jobs and income earn Pineville D−; getting around on foot earns it B+.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Pineville in brief
Pineville has far more jobs than workers
Pineville has 1,719 jobs, 3.6 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 2,800 people are in town, 80% more than the 1,600 who live here. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
30% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
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 474 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
The figures behind Pineville’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Pineville is better than 2% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Pineville’s grade up (ahead of 21% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($24,547, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (15.0%) is left out: Pineville’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, Pineville stays D−.
Pineville nearly doubles on a workday
On a workday 360 residents head out to work, 114 work right here, and 1,605 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,800 people are in Pineville on a workday afternoon, 80% more than live here.
3.6 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 Pineville
About 30% 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.
Commuting in to Pineville: where workers come from
Where Pineville clocks in
11% of workers
4% 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.
What Pineville’s employers do
1,719 jobs are based in Pineville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Pineville, 2013 → 2023: 2,257 → 1,719. 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 Pineville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Pineville spends getting to work: about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Pineville workers work from home, vs 10% across Kentucky. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 501 commuters (the 7% 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 Pineville walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Pineville is more walkable than 74% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 12.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.1% across Kentucky, on an EPA index of 6.4.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 538 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). 23.1% of Pineville households have no vehicle (Kentucky 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Pineville’s commuters take a bus or train.
U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,100, and where Pineville sits
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 40 | Pewee Valley KY | 1,668 | $157K | 3.0% | 2.7% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 65 | Audubon Park KY | 1,457 | $101K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 101 | Coldstream KY | 1,325 | $109K | 2.8% | 0.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,568 | Cypress Quarters FL | 1,697 | $38K | 35.0% | 2.5% | 2% | D− |
| 5,569 | Wadley GA | 1,548 | $38K | 26.8% | 8.6% | 13% | D− |
| 5,570 | Pineville KY | 1,552 | $25K | 34.0% | 15.0% | 24% | D− |
| 5,571 | Rich Hill MO | 1,264 | $47K | 33.7% | 6.5% | 9% | D− |
| 5,572 | Deposit NY | 1,404 | $48K | 27.8% | 3.1% | 16% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,794 | 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 Pineville, 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 Pineville: questions
What is the median household income in Pineville?
$24,547 (±$3,167) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $63,726 across Kentucky and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Pineville?
34.0%, against 16.1% across Kentucky and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Pineville?
21 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Kentucky and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Pineville work?
24% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Middlesborough (11%, 10 mi), Lexington (5%, 98 mi), Corbin (4%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Pineville walkable?
Pineville is more walkable than 74% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.4 out of 20, and 13% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Pineville without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 23% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Pineville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Pineville
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.