Photo: Natalie Maynor · CC BY 2.0Household incomes in Raleigh are lower than in 71% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 13.7% of residents; Mississippi has 18.9%. Raleigh grades C− for jobs and income and B− for walkability. Only 7% work in Raleigh; the top destination outside it is Jackson (8%, 45 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Raleigh: the gist
Jobs & income in Raleigh: the grade in detail
On income, poverty and job access, Raleigh is better than 16% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Raleigh’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 14% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (16.6%) is left out: Raleigh’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Raleigh could be anywhere from D− to B.
How far Raleigh goes to work
About 21% 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.
How a workday changes Raleigh
On a workday 369 residents head out to work, 29 work right here, and 515 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,200 people are in Raleigh on a workday afternoon, 14% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.37 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.
The towns that employ Raleigh’s residents
Where Raleigh clocks in
8% 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.
What Raleigh’s employers do
544 jobs are based in Raleigh.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Raleigh, 2013 → 2023: 493 → 544. 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 Raleigh’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Raleigh, about 23 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Raleigh workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 373 commuters (the 1% who work from home are left out). Across Mississippi: 87% 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.
Few in Raleigh walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Raleigh is more walkable than 45% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 1.8% across Mississippi, on an EPA index of 5.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 376 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). 7.5% of Raleigh households have no vehicle (Mississippi 6.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Raleigh’s commuters take a bus or train.
Raleigh is 2,282nd of 3,133 U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 999 | Columbus AFB MS | 1,293 | $70K | 6.3% | 1.9% | 4% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,160 | Hurley MS | 1,305 | $133K | 12.6% | 4.7% | 1% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,242 | Robinhood MS | 1,298 | $70K | 14.1% | 5.1% | 1% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,280 | Oxford IN | 1,183 | $52K | 13.9% | 6.5% | 1% | C− |
| 2,281 | Strawberry Point IA | 1,126 | $58K | 11.3% | 5.1% | 9% | C− |
| 2,282 | Raleigh MS | 1,066 | $62K | 13.7% | 16.6% | 7% | C− |
| 2,283 | Stromsburg NE | 1,159 | $59K | 12.2% | 0.2% | 11% | C− |
| 2,284 | Bainbridge NY | 1,248 | $58K | 11.4% | 5.9% | 8% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | 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 Raleigh, the top three, the last and three more from Mississippi.
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 Raleigh: questions
What is the median household income in Raleigh?
$61,667 (±$40,875) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Raleigh?
13.7%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Raleigh?
23 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 1% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Raleigh work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Jackson (8%, 45 mi), Bay Springs (5%, 15 mi), Magee (4%, 16 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Raleigh walkable?
Raleigh is more walkable than 45% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 5.7 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Raleigh without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Raleigh, from the people who make the trip.
More of Raleigh
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.