Photo: J.B. Chandler · CC BY-SA 3.0Chinook has lower household incomes than 71% of U.S. towns
About one in three work in Chinook; the top destination outside it is Havre (10%, 21 miles). The poverty rate is 8.4%; Montana has 11.5%. For jobs and income Chinook is better than 22% of U.S. towns (C−); for walkability it is more walkable than 89% of U.S. towns (A).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Chinook stands out on work
Where Chinook’s Jobs & income grade comes from
The poverty rate holds Chinook’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 3% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (6.2%) is left out: Chinook’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, Chinook could be anywhere from D to B−.
Getting to work from Chinook takes about 11 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Chinook workers work from home, vs 13% across Montana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 504 commuters (the 13% who work from home are left out). Across Montana: 81% 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.
The workday shuffle in and out of Chinook
On a workday 204 residents head out to work, 117 work right here, and 292 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 (1.27 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.
Commuting out of Chinook: the destinations
Where Chinook clocks in
3% 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.
Health, schools and offices: most of the jobs in Chinook
409 jobs are based in Chinook.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Chinook, 2013 → 2023: 511 → 409. 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 Chinook’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The commute from Chinook, by distance
About 23% 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.
Chinook is easy on foot, hard by bus
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 579 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). 5.3% of Chinook households have no vehicle (Montana 4.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Chinook’s commuters take a bus or train.
Chinook is 2,847th of 4,312 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 454 | Wye MT | 1,055 | $110K | 2.7% | 1.3% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 537 | Clinton MT | 1,040 | $104K | 3.8% | 4.1% | 3% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,034 | Churchill MT | 1,167 | $108K | 6.3% | 1.3% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 2,845 | Byron WI | 1,245 | $77K | 16.5% | 10.7% | 4% | C− |
| 2,846 | Lone Oak TN | 1,422 | $41K | 14.8% | 0.0% | <1% | C− |
| 2,847 | Chinook MT | 1,155 | $62K | 8.4% | 6.2% | 36% | C− |
| 2,848 | Atlantic Beach NC | 1,408 | $70K | 15.6% | 2.9% | 13% | C− |
| 2,849 | Montgomery Township IN | 1,222 | $60K | 10.2% | 4.4% | <1% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | 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 Chinook, the top three, the last and three more from Montana.
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 Chinook: questions
What is the median household income in Chinook?
$61,750 (±$15,318) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,509 across Montana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Chinook?
8.4%, against 11.5% across Montana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Chinook?
11 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Montana and 26 nationally. 13% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Chinook work?
36% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Havre (10%, 21 mi), Harlem (3%, 21 mi), Missoula (3%, 252 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Chinook walkable?
Chinook is more walkable than 89% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.8 out of 20, and 8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Chinook without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Chinook, from the people who make the trip.
More of Chinook
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.