Red Lake County Courthouse · Photo: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) · CC BY-SA 2.5Red Lake Falls has lower household incomes than 67% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 5.9% of residents, next to 9.3% for Minnesota as a whole. For jobs and income Red Lake Falls is better than 33% of U.S. towns (C); for walkability it is more walkable than 63% of U.S. towns (B). Home is the office for 10% of workers, next to 18% for Minnesota as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Red Lake Falls: the figures worth knowing
How Red Lake Falls earns its Jobs & income grade
The poverty rate holds Red Lake Falls’ grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (1.9%) is left out: Red Lake Falls’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, Red Lake Falls could be anywhere from C− to C+.
28% of working residents work in Thief River Falls
Where Red Lake Falls clocks in
7% 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 leaves Red Lake Falls for work, and who comes in
On a workday 479 residents head out to work, 175 work right here, and 329 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,200 people are in Red Lake Falls on a workday afternoon, 11% fewer than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.77 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.
The 504 jobs based in Red Lake Falls
504 jobs are based in Red Lake Falls.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Red Lake Falls, 2014 → 2024: 480 → 504. 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 Red Lake Falls’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Red Lake Falls, about 21 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Red Lake Falls workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 607 commuters (the 10% who work from home are left out). Across Minnesota: 84% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Red Lake Falls’ commute, mile by mile
About 19% 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.
Red Lake Falls is a driving town
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Minnesota, on an EPA index of 6.9.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 674 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). 6.0% of Red Lake Falls households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Red Lake Falls’ commuters take a bus or train.
Red Lake Falls is 2,880th of 5,400 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800 on jobs and income
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Medicine Lake MN | 1,342 | $184K | 2.7% | 0.0% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 32 | Dellwood MN | 1,148 | $225K | 4.1% | 0.9% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Louisville Township MN | 1,361 | $143K | 1.1% | 0.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,878 | Bushyhead OK | 1,289 | $59K | 9.6% | 8.9% | <1% | C |
| 2,879 | Killian LA | 1,260 | $68K | 13.2% | 3.4% | 3% | C |
| 2,880 | Red Lake Falls MN | 1,348 | $64K | 5.9% | 1.9% | 27% | C |
| 2,881 | Claycomo MO | 1,362 | $49K | 19.8% | 6.9% | 5% | C |
| 2,882 | Hildebran NC | 1,691 | $56K | 21.1% | 3.8% | 3% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Red Lake Falls, the top three, the last and three more from Minnesota.
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 Red Lake Falls: questions
What is the median household income in Red Lake Falls?
$64,342 (±$3,957) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Red Lake Falls?
5.9%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Red Lake Falls?
21 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Red Lake Falls work?
27% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Thief River Falls (28%, 16 mi), Crookston (7%, 17 mi), Grand Forks (3%, 38 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Red Lake Falls walkable?
Red Lake Falls is more walkable than 63% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 6.9 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Red Lake Falls 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 Red Lake Falls, from the people who make the trip.
More of Red Lake Falls
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.