Charles and Gladys Pelton House · Photo: 25or6to4 · CC BY-SA 4.0Fishtail draws 51 commuters a day, with 2.0 jobs for every working resident
0% of workers work from home; Montana has 12%. There are 51 jobs in Fishtail for 25 working residents. Hardly any stay in Fishtail for work; outside it, Billings is the main destination (12%, 52 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Who commutes out of Fishtail, and who commutes in
On a workday 25 residents head out to work and none work right here.
About 120 people are in Fishtail on a workday afternoon, 29% more than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Where Fishtail’s workforce comes from
Where Fishtail clocks in
12% of workers
8% 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.
Fishtail makes things: 29% of its jobs are in goods
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fishtail, 2013 → 2023: 5 → 51. 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 Fishtail’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Each way, about 14 minutes from Fishtail
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fishtail workers work from home, vs 13% across Montana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 12 commuters (the 0% 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.
How far Fishtail goes to work
About 40% 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.
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 Fishtail: questions
What is the poverty rate in Fishtail?
0.0%, against 11.5% across Montana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fishtail?
14 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Montana and 26 nationally. 0% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fishtail work?
0% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Billings (12%, 52 mi), Bozeman (8%, 76 mi), Absarokee (8%, 6 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Fishtail without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fishtail, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fishtail
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.