Lyons House · Photo: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD · CC BY-SA 4.0Abbeville’s household incomes are among the lowest in the country
Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Poverty touches 32.4% of residents, against 18.9% across Louisiana. For jobs and income Abbeville is better than 15% of U.S. towns (C−); for walkability it is more walkable than 87% of U.S. towns (A).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Abbeville, in a few figures
Abbeville draws workers from far and wide
The 5,787 jobs in Abbeville are filled from a wide area. Abbeville’s own residents hold 16% and the ten next-biggest home towns 21%; the other 63% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
Fewer than half of Abbeville workers earn over $40,000 a year
41% of Abbeville’s working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 19% 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.
The figures behind Abbeville’s Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Abbeville’s grade up (ahead of 62% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($33,015, U.S. $80,734).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Abbeville could be anywhere from D to C.
20% of working residents work in Lafayette
Where Abbeville clocks in
20% 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.
Inside Abbeville’s 5,787 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Abbeville, 2013 → 2023: 5,954 → 5,787. 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 Abbeville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How a workday changes Abbeville
On a workday 3,103 residents head out to work, 902 work right here, and 4,885 people come in from elsewhere.
About 13,000 people are in Abbeville on a workday afternoon, 16% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.44 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.
Getting to work from Abbeville takes about 25 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Abbeville workers work from home, vs 8% across Louisiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 4,322 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across Louisiana: 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 many miles Abbeville commutes
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.
In Abbeville, walking beats the bus
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.3% across Louisiana, on an EPA index of 8.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 4,569 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). 26.0% of Abbeville households have no vehicle (Louisiana 8.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Abbeville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Where Abbeville sits among U.S. towns of 8,000 to 15,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| 2 | Beverly Hills MI | 10,449 | $177K | 1.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Ladue MO | 8,934 | $250K | 1.1% | 1.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 337 | Belle Chasse LA | 10,934 | $115K | 6.1% | 2.5% | 16% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 704 | Mandeville LA | 12,918 | $94K | 7.1% | 2.9% | 16% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 820 | Moss Bluff LA | 12,482 | $92K | 8.9% | 1.1% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,266 | Othello WA | 9,237 | $66K | 24.1% | 5.5% | 46% | C− |
| 2,267 | Macomb City Township IL | 14,530 | $44K | 25.1% | 10.4% | 45% | C− |
| 2,268 | Abbeville LA | 10,861 | $33K | 32.4% | 5.5% | 23% | C− |
| 2,269 | Highland Park MI | 8,248 | $29K | 40.9% | 18.7% | 1% | C− |
| 2,270 | Hillcrest CA | 10,511 | $46K | 31.4% | 8.7% | 2% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,507 | Roma TX | 11,543 | $25K | 37.1% | 12.4% | 22% | 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 Abbeville, the top three, the last and three more from Louisiana.
Work in the towns next to Abbeville
Jobs & commute next door
Darker towns draw more of Abbeville’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 Abbeville: questions
What is the median household income in Abbeville?
$33,015 (±$12,166) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $60,756 across Louisiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Abbeville?
32.4%, against 18.9% across Louisiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Abbeville?
25 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Louisiana and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Abbeville work?
23% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lafayette (20%, 17 mi), Baton Rouge (3%, 68 mi), Youngsville (3%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Abbeville walkable?
Abbeville is more walkable than 87% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.3 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Abbeville without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 26% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Abbeville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Abbeville
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.