Photo: Matt Tillett from Cumberland, MD, USA · CC BY 2.0Liberty has lower household incomes than 96% of U.S. towns
4% of workers work from home (North Carolina 16%). 16.6% of residents are in poverty, next to 13.0% for North Carolina as a whole. For jobs and income Liberty is better than 16% of U.S. towns (C−); for walkability it is more walkable than 27% of U.S. towns (C).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Liberty: the gist
Liberty trades workers with the towns around it
Liberty has about as many jobs (997) as working residents (1,003), but they are mostly different people: 940 residents leave for work each day while 934 people come in. Only 6% of the jobs in Liberty are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
Liberty makes and builds things
43% of the jobs based in Liberty are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Liberty residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 26%. The jobs ↓
Few Liberty 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.
How Liberty earns its Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Liberty’s grade up (ahead of 62% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($39,663, U.S. $80,734).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Liberty could be anywhere from D to B.
The daily flow of workers through Liberty
On a workday 940 residents head out to work, 63 work right here, and 934 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 (0.99 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.
In Liberty, 43% of jobs are in factories, building or farming
997 jobs are based in Liberty.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Liberty, 2013 → 2023: 1,093 → 997. 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 Liberty’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 23 minutes each way, about the NC average
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Liberty workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,237 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.
20% of working residents work in Greensboro
Where Liberty clocks in
20% of workers
6% of workers
5% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Liberty
About 20% 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 Liberty, most people drive to work
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 2.9% across North Carolina.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,285 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 5.7% of Liberty households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Liberty’s commuters take a bus or train.
Liberty places 4,043rd of 4,969 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 1,900 to 3,700
| # | 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 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 108 | Avery Creek NC | 2,887 | $113K | 1.4% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 162 | Wrightsville Beach NC | 2,397 | $152K | 4.0% | 0.4% | 7% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 408 | Swepsonville NC | 2,632 | $101K | 4.1% | 2.2% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,041 | Arlington Township MI | 1,947 | $65K | 17.4% | 5.7% | 4% | C− |
| 4,042 | Springfield MN | 1,980 | $59K | 11.8% | 5.8% | 33% | C− |
| 4,043 | Liberty NC | 2,739 | $40K | 16.6% | 7.5% | 6% | C− |
| 4,044 | Johnsonburg PA | 2,291 | $61K | 12.3% | 7.0% | 15% | C− |
| 4,045 | Indian Creek Township IL | 2,055 | $59K | 10.4% | 6.8% | 11% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,969 | Cibecue AZ | 2,228 | $26K | 57.2% | 13.3% | 12% | 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 Liberty, 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 Liberty: questions
What is the median household income in Liberty?
$39,663 (±$21,619) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Liberty?
16.6%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Liberty?
23 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 Liberty work?
6% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Greensboro (20%, 22 mi), Asheboro (6%, 17 mi), Charlotte (5%, 84 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Liberty walkable?
Liberty is more walkable than 27% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 7.4 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Liberty without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Liberty, from the people who make the trip.
More of Liberty
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.