Photo: Hot Furnace · CC BY-SA 4.0Kinder’s household incomes are lower than in 95% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 0% of workers; Louisiana has 8%. Below the poverty line: 33.7% of residents, next to 18.9% across Louisiana. For jobs and income Kinder is better than 5% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns (B−).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Kinder
Kinder’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Kinder is Lake Charles, 29 miles away as the crow flies. 11% of working residents (98) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Kinder has added jobs fast
Jobs based in Kinder went from 516 in 2013 to 777 in 2023, +51%. 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 856 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Kinder
Job access by car holds Kinder’s grade up (ahead of 32% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (10.7%) is left out: Kinder’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, Kinder could be anywhere from D− to D.
Half of Kinder commutes less than 29 miles
About 28% 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.
The kinds of work in Kinder
777 jobs are based in Kinder.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kinder, 2013 → 2023: 516 → 777. 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 Kinder’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A workday in Kinder: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 783 residents head out to work, 73 work right here, and 704 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 (0.91 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.
11% of working residents work in Lake Charles
Where Kinder clocks in
7% 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.
Kinder’s commute takes about 22 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kinder workers work from home, vs 8% across Louisiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 889 commuters (the 0% 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.
Kinder is a driving town
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 889 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). 5.6% of Kinder households have no vehicle (Louisiana 8.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Kinder’s commuters take a bus or train.
U.S. towns of 1,500 to 2,800, and where Kinder sits
| # | 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 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 41 | Bayou Gauche LA | 1,908 | $163K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 257 | Montz LA | 2,074 | $92K | 4.7% | 0.2% | <1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 396 | Des Allemands LA | 2,382 | $88K | 2.4% | 2.5% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,740 | Las Lomas TX | 2,154 | $25K | 37.0% | 14.0% | 1% | D |
| 4,741 | Cave City KY | 2,398 | $28K | 29.9% | 7.1% | 6% | D |
| 4,742 | Kinder LA | 2,091 | $42K | 33.7% | 10.7% | 9% | D |
| 4,743 | Crane MO | 1,509 | $37K | 34.2% | 6.5% | 8% | D |
| 4,744 | Pembroke Township IL | 1,856 | $32K | 18.0% | 10.8% | 6% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,148 | 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 Kinder, 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 Kinder: questions
What is the median household income in Kinder?
$42,100 (±$17,019) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $60,756 across Louisiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kinder?
33.7%, against 18.9% across Louisiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kinder?
22 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Louisiana and 26 nationally. 0% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kinder work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lake Charles (11%, 29 mi), Oberlin (7%, 10 mi), Lafayette (4%, 53 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Kinder walkable?
Kinder is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 6.9 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kinder without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Kinder, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kinder
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.