Randle House · Photo: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD · CC BY-SA 3.0Norwood has lower household incomes than 86% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 8.5% of residents, next to 13.0% across North Carolina. Norwood grades C− for jobs and income and C− for walkability. Home is the office for 9% of workers, where North Carolina as a whole has 16%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Norwood, in brief
Jobs in Norwood have more than doubled in ten years
Jobs based in Norwood went from 483 in 2013 to 1,117 in 2023, +131%. The jobs ↓
Norwood trades workers with the towns around it
Norwood has about as many jobs (1,117) as working residents (1,091), but they are mostly different people: 994 residents leave for work each day while 1,020 people come in. Only 9% of the jobs in Norwood are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
Norwood makes and builds things
58% of the jobs based in Norwood are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Norwood residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 30%. The jobs ↓
Norwood’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Norwood is Charlotte, 41 miles away as the crow flies. 15% of working residents (159) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
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; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
Jobs & income in Norwood: the grade in detail
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Norwood is better than 19% of U.S. towns, #234 of 290 in North Carolina. The poverty rate holds Norwood’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($51,639, U.S. $80,734).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Norwood could be anywhere from D to B−.
Norwood makes things: 58% of its jobs are in goods
1,117 jobs are based in Norwood.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Norwood, 2013 → 2023: 483 → 1,117. 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 Norwood’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Norwood by day and by night
On a workday 994 residents head out to work, 97 work right here, and 1,020 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 (1.02 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.
How far Norwood’s workers travel
About 18% 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.
15% of working residents work in Charlotte
Where Norwood clocks in
15% of workers
14% 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.
About 27 minutes each way for Norwood’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Norwood workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,085 commuters (the 9% 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.
Norwood is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Norwood is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns, #247 of 290 in North Carolina. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 0.2% of 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 1,188 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). 10.8% of Norwood households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Norwood’s commuters take a bus or train.
Norwood is 3,991st of 5,083 U.S. towns of 1,800 to 3,500 on jobs and income
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 110 | Avery Creek NC | 2,887 | $113K | 1.4% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 164 | Wrightsville Beach NC | 2,397 | $152K | 4.0% | 0.4% | 7% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 412 | Swepsonville NC | 2,632 | $101K | 4.1% | 2.2% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,989 | Red Bay AL | 3,196 | $37K | 20.1% | 2.8% | 38% | C− |
| 3,990 | Richlands NC | 2,485 | $65K | 11.1% | 9.7% | 6% | C− |
| 3,991 | Norwood NC | 2,568 | $52K | 8.5% | 6.6% | 9% | C− |
| 3,992 | Philadelphia NY | 1,937 | $76K | 18.9% | 2.8% | 17% | C− |
| 3,993 | Addison Township OH | 2,092 | $65K | 11.7% | 2.2% | 3% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,083 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Norwood, 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 Norwood: questions
What is the median household income in Norwood?
$51,639 (±$15,100) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Norwood?
8.5%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Norwood?
27 minutes each way on average, against 25 across North Carolina and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Norwood work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Charlotte (15%, 41 mi), Albemarle (14%, 10 mi), Concord (4%, 32 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Norwood walkable?
Norwood is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 6.0 out of 20, and <1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Norwood without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Norwood, from the people who make the trip.
More of Norwood
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.