Welcome draws 3,485 commuters a day, with 1.9 jobs for every working resident
Welcome has 3,609 jobs, and 1,860 of its residents work somewhere. For jobs and income Welcome is better than 60% of U.S. towns (B); for walkability it is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns (C−). Working from home is the commute for 4% of workers, next to 16% for North Carolina as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Welcome, in brief
Welcome makes and builds things
66% of the jobs based in Welcome are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Welcome residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 24%. The jobs ↓
Welcome is where the jobs are
Welcome has 3,609 jobs, 1.9 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 5,300 people are in town, 50% more than the 3,500 who live here. Day and night ↓
Welcome and Winston-Salem trade workers both ways
Winston-Salem is the top workplace for Welcome residents (22%) and also where the most people who work in Welcome come from (17% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Few Welcome 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.
The four measures behind Welcome’s grade
Job access by car holds Welcome’s grade up (ahead of 76% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($63,353, U.S. $80,734). It also does well on the poverty rate and unemployment.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Welcome could be anywhere from C to A.
Making and building: 66% of jobs based in Welcome
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Welcome, 2013 → 2023: 3,255 → 3,609. 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 Welcome’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Welcome, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 1,736 residents head out to work and 124 work right here.
About 5,300 people are in Welcome on a workday afternoon, 50% more 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.
Where Welcome’s workforce comes from
Where Welcome clocks in
7% 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 26 minutes to work from Welcome
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Welcome workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,656 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Welcome
About 19% 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.
Most trips from Welcome start in a car
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 1,733 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). 7.1% of Welcome households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Welcome’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Welcome is 1,725th of 4,355 U.S. towns of 2,500 to 4,800
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Mission Hills KS | 3,522 | $250K | 1.2% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 90 | Jamestown NC | 3,803 | $105K | 2.5% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 130 | Avery Creek NC | 2,887 | $113K | 1.4% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 196 | Fairview NC | 3,805 | $99K | 1.8% | 1.8% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,723 | Hallam PA | 2,798 | $75K | 17.5% | 2.7% | 2% | B |
| 1,724 | Lead SD | 3,064 | $73K | 7.5% | 0.0% | 18% | B |
| 1,725 | Welcome NC | 3,521 | $63K | 9.3% | 3.3% | 7% | B |
| 1,726 | Ferrisburgh VT | 2,677 | $107K | 2.2% | 5.2% | 10% | B |
| 1,727 | Thetford VT | 2,863 | $88K | 8.0% | 2.4% | 16% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 4,355 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | 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 Welcome, 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 Welcome: questions
What is the median household income in Welcome?
$63,353 (±$5,340) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Welcome?
9.3%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Welcome?
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 Welcome work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Winston-Salem (22%, 14 mi), Lexington (7%, 8 mi), High Point (6%, 16 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Welcome walkable?
Welcome is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 6.6 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Welcome without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Welcome, from the people who make the trip.
More of Welcome
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.