Photo: Billy Hathorn · CC BY-SA 3.0Bernice has some of the lowest household incomes of any U.S. town
28.1% of residents are in poverty; Louisiana has 18.9%. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. For jobs and income Bernice is better than 2% of U.S. towns (D−); for walkability it is more walkable than 50% of U.S. towns (B−).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Bernice at work: what stands out
What’s behind Bernice’s Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Bernice’s grade up (ahead of 21% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($26,399, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (4.6%) is left out: Bernice’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, Bernice could be anywhere from D− to D.
Getting to work from Bernice takes about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Bernice workers work from home, vs 8% across Louisiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 549 commuters (the 1% 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 people are in Bernice by day
On a workday 470 residents head out to work, 23 work right here, and 155 people come in from elsewhere.
About 990 people are in Bernice on a workday afternoon, 24% fewer than live here.
0.36 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
11% of working residents work in Farmerville
Where Bernice clocks in
11% of workers
9% of workers
8% 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 work there is in Bernice: 178 jobs
178 jobs are based in Bernice.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Bernice, 2013 → 2023: 255 → 178. 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 Bernice’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where in the region Bernice works
About 25% 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.
Bernice is a driving town
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 12.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.3% across Louisiana, on an EPA index of 3.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 555 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). 4.5% of Bernice households have no vehicle (Louisiana 8.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Bernice’s commuters take a bus or train.
Bernice and other U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 314 | Paulina LA | 1,785 | $89K | 2.1% | 0.0% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 490 | Sorrento LA | 1,622 | $118K | 8.5% | 3.2% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 513 | Cade LA | 1,710 | $73K | 6.0% | 1.5% | 2% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,134 | Colfax LA | 1,393 | $26K | 37.3% | 5.8% | 20% | D− |
| 5,135 | Ringgold LA | 1,314 | $31K | 33.8% | 14.3% | 10% | D− |
| 5,136 | Bernice LA | 1,305 | $26K | 28.1% | 4.6% | 5% | D− |
| 5,137 | Whitehall MT | 1,131 | $45K | 20.6% | 8.9% | 13% | D− |
| 5,138 | Westville OK | 1,413 | $39K | 34.1% | 12.8% | 23% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 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 Bernice, 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 Bernice: questions
What is the median household income in Bernice?
$26,399 (±$15,094) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $60,756 across Louisiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Bernice?
28.1%, against 18.9% across Louisiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Bernice?
21 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Louisiana and 26 nationally. 1% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Bernice work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Farmerville (11%, 15 mi), Ruston (9%, 20 mi), Monroe (8%, 40 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Bernice walkable?
Bernice is more walkable than 50% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 3.7 out of 20, and 12% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Bernice without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Bernice, from the people who make the trip.
More of Bernice
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.