Photo: MattShaw9365 · CC BY-SA 3.0Wilson’s household incomes are lower than in 85% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 7% of workers, where North Carolina as a whole has 16%. 23.0% of residents live below the poverty line (North Carolina 13.0%). The two grades for Wilson are C− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Wilson at work: what stands out
Wilson is where the jobs are
Wilson has 29,831 jobs, 1.6 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Wilson draws workers from far and wide
The 29,831 jobs in Wilson are filled from a wide area. Wilson’s own residents hold 25% and the ten next-biggest home towns 14%; the other 61% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
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.
What’s behind Wilson’s Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Wilson’s grade up (ahead of 56% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Wilson could be anywhere from D to C−.
Who commutes out of Wilson, and who commutes in
On a workday 11,382 residents head out to work, 7,590 work right here, and 22,241 people come in from elsewhere.
About 60,000 people are in Wilson on a workday afternoon, 22% more than live here.
1.6 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Commuting in to Wilson: where workers come from
Where Wilson clocks in
6% of workers
5% 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.
Wilson makes things: 29% of its jobs are in goods
29,831 jobs are based in Wilson.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Wilson, 2013 → 2023: 29,457 → 29,831. 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 Wilson’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 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Wilson workers work from home, vs 16% across North Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 19,314 commuters (the 7% 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 Wilson
About 21% 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.
Wilson is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Wilson is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns, #72 of 290 in North Carolina. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 2.4% 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 20,854 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). 8.6% of Wilson households have no vehicle (North Carolina 5.3%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Wilson’s commuters take a bus or train.
Where Wilson sits among U.S. towns of 35,000 to 67,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Upper Arlington OH | 35,893 | $155K | 3.3% | 2.0% | 7% | A+ |
| 3 | Oakton VA | 36,528 | $161K | 4.6% | 1.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 83 | Cornelius NC | 35,094 | $114K | 5.4% | 2.4% | 10% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 98 | Chapel Hill NC | 63,565 | $86K | 18.6% | 4.5% | 27% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Holly Springs NC | 50,288 | $136K | 4.8% | 3.4% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 848 | Valdosta GA | 56,186 | $46K | 26.1% | 5.7% | 51% | C− |
| 849 | Rocky Mount NC | 55,120 | $56K | 19.7% | 8.0% | 33% | C− |
| 850 | Wilson NC | 49,572 | $52K | 23.0% | 6.7% | 40% | C− |
| 851 | Springfield OH | 58,281 | $47K | 23.1% | 9.4% | 34% | C− |
| 852 | Porterville CA | 63,088 | $60K | 17.3% | 10.1% | 31% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 887 | 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 Wilson, 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 Wilson: questions
What is the median household income in Wilson?
$52,485 (±$4,430) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,388 across North Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Wilson?
23.0%, against 13.0% across North Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Wilson?
21 minutes each way on average, against 25 across North Carolina and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Wilson work?
40% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Raleigh (6%, 40 mi), Rocky Mount (5%, 18 mi), Greenville (4%, 33 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Wilson walkable?
Wilson is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 8.3 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Wilson without a car?
<1% 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 Wilson, from the people who make the trip.
More of Wilson
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.