Bank of Ville Platte · Photo: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD · CC BY-SA 4.0Household incomes put Ville Platte near the very bottom of U.S. towns
For jobs and income Ville Platte is better than 3% of U.S. towns (D−); for walkability it is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (A). Measured by household income, Ville Platte is among the lowest-earning towns in the country. 31.2% of residents live below the poverty line; Louisiana has 18.9%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Ville Platte
Ville Platte’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Ville Platte is Lafayette, 36 miles away as the crow flies. 8% of working residents (178) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Commutes from Ville Platte are quick
The average trip to work takes 18 minutes, against 26 across Louisiana. That’s about 61 hours a year less on the road than the typical Louisiana worker. Time on the road ↓
Fewer than half of Ville Platte workers earn over $40,000 a year
38% of Ville Platte’s working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 20% earn $1,250 a month or less. The jobs ↓
No single place dominates Ville Platte’s commute
The biggest draw, Lafayette, gets only 8% of working residents, and 53% work outside the top ten towns entirely. Ville Platte residents fan out across the region. The commute map ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey.
Jobs & income in Ville Platte: the grade in detail
Job access by car holds Ville Platte’s grade up (ahead of 39% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down (22.8%, U.S. 5.2%).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Ville Platte could be anywhere from D− to D.
Half of Ville Platte commutes less than 23 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Each way, about 18 minutes from Ville Platte
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ville Platte workers work from home, vs 8% across Louisiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,770 commuters (the 2% 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.
What work there is in Ville Platte: 2,583 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ville Platte, 2014 → 2024: 3,201 → 2,583. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Ville Platte’s own residents hold wherever they work.
8% of working residents work in Lafayette
Where Ville Platte clocks in
8% of workers
5% 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.
Who works in Ville Platte, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 1,672 residents head out to work, 443 work right here, and 2,140 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 (1.22 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
Ville Platte is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 15.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.3% across Louisiana, on an EPA index of 8.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,814 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). 26.9% of Ville Platte households have no vehicle (Louisiana 8.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Ville Platte’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Ville Platte compares with U.S. towns of 4,300 to 8,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Ho-Ho-Kus NJ | 4,313 | $250K | 0.0% | 1.7% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 181 | Addis LA | 7,679 | $108K | 3.2% | 1.8% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,004 | Elmwood LA | 6,077 | $89K | 7.7% | 4.8% | 12% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,259 | Westlake LA | 4,763 | $68K | 12.1% | 0.0% | 5% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,307 | Wynne AR | 7,884 | $43K | 24.7% | 10.3% | 33% | D− |
| 3,308 | DeFuniak Springs FL | 7,338 | $55K | 20.2% | 15.3% | 23% | D− |
| 3,309 | Ville Platte LA | 6,172 | $28K | 31.2% | 22.8% | 21% | D− |
| 3,310 | Brent AL | 4,414 | $23K | 50.8% | 26.6% | 11% | D− |
| 3,311 | Holdenville OK | 5,923 | $46K | 24.2% | 7.9% | 30% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,370 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 6% | 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 Ville Platte, 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 2024, 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 Ville Platte: questions
What is the median household income in Ville Platte?
$28,361 (±$5,418) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $60,756 across Louisiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ville Platte?
31.2%, against 18.9% across Louisiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ville Platte?
18 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Louisiana and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ville Platte work?
21% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lafayette (8%, 36 mi), Opelousas (5%, 16 mi), Baton Rouge (3%, 70 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Ville Platte walkable?
Ville Platte is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.7 out of 20, and 15% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ville Platte without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 27% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ville Platte, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ville Platte
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.