Photo: Harris Walker · CC BY 2.0At 8.0%, unemployment in Rocky Mount is higher than in 88% of U.S. towns
Household incomes here are lower than in 81% of U.S. towns. The two grades for Rocky Mount are C− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. Working from home is the commute 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
Work in Rocky Mount: the figures worth knowing
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Rocky Mount
Job access by car holds Rocky Mount’s grade up (ahead of 55% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Rocky Mount could be anywhere from D to C−.
7% of working residents work in Raleigh
Where Rocky Mount clocks in
7% of workers
6% 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.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 14,992 residents head out to work, 7,332 work right here, and 20,101 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 (1.23 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.
The kinds of work in Rocky Mount
27,433 jobs are based in Rocky Mount.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Rocky Mount, 2013 → 2023: 30,846 → 27,433. 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 Rocky Mount’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 21 minutes each way, quicker than most of North Carolina
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Rocky Mount workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 21,388 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.
How far it is to work from Rocky Mount
About 22% 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 Rocky Mount, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Rocky Mount is more walkable than 72% of U.S. towns, #57 of 290 in North Carolina. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.8% 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 23,392 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 76% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 60% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 1.8 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 66% 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). 12.0% of Rocky Mount households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Rocky Mount’s commuters take a bus or train.
Rocky Mount next to U.S. towns of 39,000 to 74,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Fulshear TX | 64,630 | $187K | 1.6% | 2.8% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Liberty Township OH | 40,625 | $187K | 1.6% | 2.5% | 8% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 40 | Huntersville NC | 68,535 | $121K | 3.1% | 3.2% | 10% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 83 | Chapel Hill NC | 63,565 | $86K | 18.6% | 4.5% | 27% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 119 | Holly Springs NC | 50,288 | $136K | 4.8% | 3.4% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 748 | Danville VA | 41,647 | $44K | 24.7% | 5.6% | 47% | C− |
| 749 | Valdosta GA | 56,186 | $46K | 26.1% | 5.7% | 51% | C− |
| 750 | Rocky Mount NC | 55,120 | $56K | 19.7% | 8.0% | 33% | C− |
| 751 | Wilson NC | 49,572 | $52K | 23.0% | 6.7% | 40% | C− |
| 752 | Springfield OH | 58,281 | $47K | 23.1% | 9.4% | 34% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 776 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 26% | 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 Rocky Mount, the top three, the last and three more from North Carolina.
Next door to Rocky Mount
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Rocky Mount workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocky Mount | – | C− | B+ | 21 min | $55,534 |
| Dortches | under 1% | B− | C− | 20 min | $74,500 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Rocky Mount’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 Rocky Mount: questions
What is the median household income in Rocky Mount?
$55,534 (±$2,420) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Rocky Mount?
19.7%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Rocky Mount?
21 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 Rocky Mount work?
33% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Raleigh (7%, 48 mi), Wilson (6%, 18 mi), Tarboro (4%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Rocky Mount walkable?
Rocky Mount is more walkable than 72% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 12.0 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Rocky Mount without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 12% of households have no car. 60% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Rocky Mount, from the people who make the trip.
More of Rocky Mount
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.