Morehouse Parish Courthouse · Photo: Billy Hathorn · CC BY 3.0Bastrop’s household incomes are among the lowest in the country
Measured by household income, Bastrop is among the lowest-earning towns in the country. 40.1% of residents are in poverty, next to 18.9% for Louisiana as a whole. Jobs and income earn Bastrop 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
Work in Bastrop: the figures worth knowing
Fewer than half of Bastrop workers earn over $40,000 a year
31% of Bastrop’s working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 22% earn $1,250 a month or less. The jobs ↓
Bastrop trades workers with the towns around it
Bastrop has about as many jobs (3,626) as working residents (3,375), but they are mostly different people: 2,462 residents leave for work each day while 2,713 people come in. Only 25% of the jobs in Bastrop are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
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.
Income, poverty and work: Bastrop’s grade explained
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Bastrop is better than 4% of U.S. towns, #146 of 161 in Louisiana. Job access by car holds Bastrop’s grade up (ahead of 42% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Bastrop could be anywhere from D− to D.
Jobs in Bastrop: what the 3,626 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Bastrop, 2013 → 2023: 4,023 → 3,626. 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 Bastrop’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 2,462 residents head out to work, 913 work right here, and 2,713 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.07 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.
16% of working residents work in Monroe
Where Bastrop clocks in
16% of workers
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.
About 24 minutes each way for Bastrop’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Bastrop workers work from home, vs 8% across Louisiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,975 commuters (the 4% 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.
Where in the region Bastrop works
About 21% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Bastrop
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Bastrop is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns, #14 of 161 in Louisiana. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.3% across Louisiana, on an EPA index of 7.4.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 3,110 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). 20.2% of Bastrop households have no vehicle (Louisiana 8.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Bastrop’s commuters take a bus or train.
Bastrop and other U.S. towns of 6,200 to 12,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| 3 | Pimmit Hills VA | 6,589 | $173K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 192 | Addis LA | 7,679 | $108K | 3.2% | 1.8% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 363 | Belle Chasse LA | 10,934 | $115K | 6.1% | 2.5% | 16% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 973 | Harahan LA | 8,916 | $80K | 7.5% | 3.8% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,873 | Bennettsville SC | 7,565 | $37K | 28.4% | 12.5% | 22% | D− |
| 2,874 | Eidson Road TX | 9,684 | $34K | 24.6% | 14.5% | 7% | D− |
| 2,875 | Bastrop LA | 8,908 | $33K | 40.1% | 15.1% | 27% | D− |
| 2,876 | Rockingham NC | 8,815 | $37K | 30.6% | 11.3% | 20% | D− |
| 2,877 | Laughlin NV | 8,789 | $46K | 22.1% | 7.1% | 45% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,907 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Bastrop, the top three, the last and three more from Louisiana.
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 Bastrop: questions
What is the median household income in Bastrop?
$32,605 (±$5,367) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $60,756 across Louisiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Bastrop?
40.1%, against 18.9% across Louisiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Bastrop?
24 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Louisiana and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Bastrop work?
27% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Monroe (16%, 20 mi), West Monroe (3%, 23 mi), Ruston (2%, 46 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Bastrop walkable?
Bastrop is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.4 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Bastrop without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 20% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Bastrop, from the people who make the trip.
More of Bastrop
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.