Photo: Charlotte Jackson · CC BY 4.0Hagerstown’s household incomes are lower than in 85% of U.S. towns
Home is the office for 12% of workers; Maryland has 19%. 21.9% of residents live below the poverty line, next to 9.4% for Maryland as a whole. Hagerstown grades C− for jobs and income and A− for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Hagerstown
Hagerstown trades workers with the towns around it
Hagerstown has about as many jobs (21,284) as working residents (18,207), but they are mostly different people: 14,776 residents leave for work each day while 17,853 people come in. Only 16% of the jobs in Hagerstown are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
No single place dominates Hagerstown’s commute
The biggest draw, Frederick, gets only 5% of working residents, and 57% work outside the top ten towns entirely. Hagerstown residents fan out across the region. The commute map ↓
Hagerstown draws workers from far and wide
The 21,284 jobs in Hagerstown are filled from a wide area. Hagerstown’s own residents hold 16% and the ten next-biggest home towns 19%; the other 65% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
Commutes from Hagerstown are quick
The average trip to work takes 26 minutes, against 31 across Maryland. That’s about 38 hours a year less on the road than the typical Maryland worker. Time on the road ↓
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.
Hagerstown’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
Job access by car holds Hagerstown’s grade up (ahead of 70% 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, Hagerstown could be anywhere from D to C.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 14,776 residents head out to work, 3,431 work right here, and 17,853 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 (1.17 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.
5% of working residents work in Frederick
Where Hagerstown clocks in
5% 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.
Getting to work from Hagerstown takes about 26 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Hagerstown workers work from home, vs 19% across Maryland. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 16,810 commuters (the 12% who work from home are left out). Across Maryland: 80% drive alone, 5% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
What the 21,284 jobs in Hagerstown are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Hagerstown, 2013 → 2023: 25,618 → 21,284. 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 Hagerstown’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Half of Hagerstown commutes less than 13 miles
About 27% 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.
Hagerstown is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Hagerstown is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns, #128 of 261 in Maryland. Both inputs place Hagerstown near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 19,001 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). 16.1% of Hagerstown households have no vehicle (Maryland 8.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 2% of Hagerstown’s commuters take a bus or train.
Hagerstown and other U.S. towns of 31,000 to 60,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 11% | A+ |
| 3 | Leawood KS | 34,093 | $186K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Severna Park MD | 40,228 | $170K | 2.8% | 2.7% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 26 | Pasadena MD | 34,309 | $130K | 5.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 38 | Potomac MD | 45,902 | $237K | 3.9% | 3.6% | 8% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 931 | Marrero LA | 32,540 | $41K | 23.0% | 8.2% | 7% | C− |
| 932 | Rome GA | 38,934 | $54K | 20.6% | 5.9% | 32% | C− |
| 933 | Hagerstown MD | 44,228 | $52K | 21.9% | 7.2% | 19% | C− |
| 934 | York PA | 45,342 | $48K | 21.1% | 10.7% | 14% | C− |
| 935 | Kingman AZ | 35,829 | $62K | 14.3% | 6.7% | 39% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,000 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 26% | 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 Hagerstown, the top three, the last and three more from Maryland.
The towns next door employ 10% of Hagerstown
The biggest share goes to Robinwood (4%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Hagerstown workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hagerstown | – | C− | A− | 26 min | $52,221 |
| Halfway | 3% | B− | C | 22 min | $71,036 |
| Robinwood | 4% | B+ | B | 27 min | $90,840 |
| Fountainhead-Orchard Hills | 3% | A− | B+ | 27 min | $103,340 |
| Paramount-Long Meadow | under 2% | A | B− | 29 min | $122,262 |
| Funkstown | under 2% | — | — | 20 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Funkstown: not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Hagerstown’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 Hagerstown: questions
What is the median household income in Hagerstown?
$52,221 (±$3,236) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $103,678 across Maryland and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Hagerstown?
21.9%, against 9.4% across Maryland and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Hagerstown?
26 minutes each way on average, against 31 across Maryland and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Hagerstown work?
19% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Frederick (5%, 22 mi), Robinwood (4%, 3 mi), Ballenger Creek (3%, 24 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Hagerstown walkable?
Hagerstown is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.7 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Hagerstown without a car?
2% of commuters take transit and 16% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Hagerstown, from the people who make the trip.
More of Hagerstown
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.