Photo: Xnatedawgx · CC BY-SA 3.0Lame Deer’s household incomes are among the lowest in the country
Poverty touches 55.8% of residents, against 11.5% across Montana. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Lame Deer grades D− for jobs and income and B for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Lame Deer and work: the main findings
Lame Deer is where the jobs are
Lame Deer has 744 jobs, 2.1 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Lame Deer are quick
The average trip to work takes 12 minutes, against 19 across Montana. That’s about 54 hours a year less on the road than the typical Montana worker. Time on the road ↓
Fewer jobs are based in Lame Deer than ten years ago
Jobs counted in Lame Deer fell from 1,027 in 2013 to 744 in 2023, −28%. That can be real closings or a large employer now reporting its workers at another address; the data can’t tell the two apart. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 358 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Lame Deer
On income, poverty and job access, Lame Deer is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Lame Deer’s grade.
Unemployment (42.2%) is left out: Lame Deer’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Lame Deer stays D−.
Who leaves Lame Deer for work, and who comes in
On a workday 143 residents head out to work, 215 work right here, and 529 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,300 people are in Lame Deer on a workday afternoon, 21% more than live here.
2.1 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
A commute of about 12 minutes in Lame Deer
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lame Deer workers work from home, vs 13% across Montana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 287 commuters (the 9% 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.
Lame Deer is a services town
744 jobs are based in Lame Deer.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lame Deer, 2013 → 2023: 1,027 → 744. 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 Lame Deer’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting in to Lame Deer: where workers come from
Where Lame Deer clocks in
2% 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.
Lame Deer’s commute, mile by mile
About 17% 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 Lame Deer, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Lame Deer is more walkable than 64% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 5.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 6.3% across Montana, on an EPA index of 6.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 316 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). 14.5% of Lame Deer households have no vehicle (Montana 4.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Lame Deer’s commuters take a bus or train.
Lame Deer and other U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,500
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 518 | King Arthur Park MT | 1,992 | $109K | 7.4% | 0.0% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 609 | Manhattan MT | 2,073 | $88K | 2.9% | 0.0% | 9% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 843 | Big Sky MT | 2,445 | $139K | 4.7% | 1.4% | 68% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,653 | Dolan Springs AZ | 1,341 | $26K | 41.1% | 30.0% | 5% | D− |
| 5,654 | Nanawale Estates HI | 1,692 | $27K | 53.0% | 4.4% | 1% | D− |
| 5,655 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | D− |
| 5,656 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Lame Deer, the top three, the last and three more from Montana.
How Lame Deer compares with the towns next door
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Lame Deer workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lame Deer | – | D− | B | 12 min | $23,700 |
| Muddy | under 1% | — | — | 20 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Muddy: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Lame Deer’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Lame Deer: questions
What is the median household income in Lame Deer?
$23,700 (±$4,411) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,509 across Montana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lame Deer?
55.8%, against 11.5% across Montana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lame Deer?
12 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Montana and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lame Deer work?
60% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Ashland (10%, 15 mi), Billings (2%, 94 mi), Colstrip (1%, 19 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lame Deer walkable?
Lame Deer is more walkable than 64% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 6.5 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lame Deer without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 14% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lame Deer, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lame Deer
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.