Holbrook Farm · Photo: G Keith Hall · CC BY-SA 3.0Most of Hays commutes out: there are 0.3 jobs for every working resident
Jobs and income earn Hays C+; getting around on foot earns it D−. 164 jobs are based in Hays; 621 of its residents have a job. Household incomes here are lower than in 81% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Hays at work: what stands out
Hays is a place people come home to
There are 164 jobs based in Hays, about three for every ten working residents, so almost everyone works somewhere else. On a workday Hays has about 600 people in it, 43% fewer than live here. Day and night ↓
Few Hays workers work from home
Only 4% of workers work from home, against 16% across North Carolina. Almost everyone here travels to a job. Time on the road ↓
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 621 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What’s behind Hays’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Hays is better than 35% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Hays’ grade up (4.9%, U.S. 12.5%); household income pulls it down ($55,035, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (0.0%) 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 C− to B+.
Who leaves Hays for work, and who comes in
On a workday 614 residents head out to work, 7 work right here, and 157 people come in from elsewhere.
About 600 people are in Hays on a workday afternoon, 43% fewer 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.
About 26 minutes each way for Hays’ commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Hays workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 613 commuters (the 4% who work from home are left out). Across North Carolina: 85% 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.
18% of working residents work in Wilkesboro
Where Hays clocks in
18% 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.
Hays works in goods: 28% of its jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Hays, 2013 → 2023: 166 → 164. 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.
Half of Hays commutes less than 16 miles
About 24% 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.
The commute in Hays is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Hays is near the bottom of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Hays near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 638 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). 9.4% of Hays households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Hays’ commuters take a bus or train.
Hays is 1,531st 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 158 | Montreat NC | 1,024 | $116K | 0.0% | 9.6% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 263 | Stem NC | 1,023 | $96K | 3.0% | 1.1% | 0% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 302 | Brandywine Bay NC | 1,313 | $105K | 1.2% | 12.1% | 0% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,529 | Brevator Township MN | 1,221 | $85K | 15.7% | 6.7% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,530 | Bloomfield Township OH | 1,233 | $74K | 13.2% | 1.1% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,531 | Hays NC | 1,053 | $55K | 4.9% | 0.0% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,532 | Kingsley IA | 1,373 | $73K | 10.0% | 0.5% | 10% | C+ |
| 1,533 | Franconia NH | 1,143 | $87K | 11.4% | 3.2% | 13% | 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 Hays, the top three, the last and three more from North Carolina.
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?
$55,035 (±$28,446) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Hays?
4.9%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Hays?
26 minutes each way on average, against 25 across North Carolina and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Hays work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Wilkesboro (18%, 8 mi), North Wilkesboro (11%, 5 mi), Winston-Salem (8%, 49 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Hays walkable?
Hays is near the bottom of U.S. towns (Walkability D−): an EPA walkability index of 3.3 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Hays without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 9% 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.