Hays has lower household incomes than 85% of U.S. towns
23.7% of residents live below the poverty line, where Montana as a whole has 11.5%. For jobs and income Hays is better than 2% of U.S. towns (D−); for walkability it is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns (C+). About two in five stay in Hays for work; outside it, Harlem is the main destination (8%, 36 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Hays
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Hays’ grade.
Unemployment (21.1%) is left out: Hays’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, Hays could be anywhere from D− to C−.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 61 residents head out to work, 39 work right here, and 44 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 (0.83 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 Hays: the destinations
Where Hays clocks in
8% of workers
5% 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.
Mostly health care, schools and offices in Hays
83 jobs are based in Hays.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Hays, 2013 → 2023: 77 → 83. 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 Hays’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 16 minutes in Hays
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Hays workers work from home, vs 13% across Montana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 293 commuters (the 11% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Hays
About 47% 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.
In Hays, most people drive to work
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 6.3% across Montana, on an EPA index of 2.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 329 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). 8.1% of Hays households have no vehicle (Montana 4.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Hays’ commuters take a bus or train.
Hays and other U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 301 | Wye MT | 1,055 | $110K | 2.7% | 1.3% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 361 | Clinton MT | 1,040 | $104K | 3.8% | 4.1% | 3% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 719 | Churchill MT | 1,167 | $108K | 6.3% | 1.3% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 2,993 | Addison ME | 1,193 | $51K | 22.1% | 3.0% | 4% | D− |
| 2,994 | Ak-Chin Village AZ | 1,132 | $47K | 30.6% | 9.7% | 10% | D− |
| 2,995 | Hays MT | 1,009 | $52K | 23.7% | 21.1% | 39% | D− |
| 2,996 | Buffalo SC | 1,329 | $22K | 50.5% | 12.8% | 1% | D− |
| 2,997 | Hooper Bay AK | 1,297 | $50K | 22.7% | 14.3% | — | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Hays, 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 Hays: questions
What is the median household income in Hays?
$52,250 (±$23,930) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,509 across Montana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Hays?
23.7%, against 11.5% across Montana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Hays?
16 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Montana and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Hays work?
39% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Harlem (8%, 36 mi), Missoula (5%, 263 mi), Helena (4%, 185 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Hays walkable?
Hays is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 2.8 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Hays 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 Hays, from the people who make the trip.
More of Hays
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.