Photo: Andrew Filer from Seattle (ex-Minneapolis) · CC BY-SA 2.0Belcourt draws 1,582 commuters a day, with 3.7 jobs for every working resident
About half work in Belcourt itself; outside it, Rolla draws the most (8%, 6 miles). Employers in Belcourt report 1,812 jobs for 489 working residents. Jobs and income earn Belcourt C−; getting around on foot earns it A−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Belcourt and work: the main findings
Belcourt has far more jobs than workers
Belcourt has 1,812 jobs, 3.7 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 2,900 people are in town, 86% more than the 1,500 who live here. Day and night ↓
Belcourt has added jobs fast
Jobs based in Belcourt went from 950 in 2014 to 1,812 in 2024, +91%. The jobs ↓
Nearly all the work in Belcourt is services
92% of the jobs based here are in services, such as health care, schools and offices. Only 0% are in factories, building or farms. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 489 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
Jobs & income in Belcourt: the grade in detail
On income, poverty and job access, Belcourt is better than 18% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Belcourt’s grade up ($90,568, U.S. $80,734); the poverty rate pulls it down (27.7%, U.S. 12.5%).
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Belcourt’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Belcourt could be anywhere from D− to C+.
How a workday changes Belcourt
On a workday 259 residents head out to work and 230 work right here.
About 2,900 people are in Belcourt on a workday afternoon, 86% 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 2024, primary jobs.
Mostly health care, schools and offices in Belcourt
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Belcourt, 2014 → 2024: 950 → 1,812. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Belcourt’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting in to Belcourt: where workers come from
Where Belcourt clocks in
5% 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.
About 11 minutes each way, quicker than most of North Dakota
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Belcourt workers work from home, vs 8% across North Dakota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 499 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across North Dakota: 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.
Half of Belcourt commutes less than 3 miles
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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Belcourt is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Belcourt is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 17.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.2% across North Dakota, on an EPA index of 7.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 542 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). 7.4% of Belcourt households have no vehicle (North Dakota 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Belcourt’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 5,794 U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,100, Belcourt comes 4,172nd on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 121 | Reed Township ND | 1,151 | $131K | 0.4% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 239 | Williston Township ND | 1,116 | $250K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 478 | Thompson ND | 1,100 | $118K | 1.5% | 0.6% | 3% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,170 | West St. Clair Township PA | 1,639 | $53K | 11.0% | 2.1% | 5% | C− |
| 4,171 | Zerbe Township PA | 1,769 | $58K | 17.4% | 5.3% | 3% | C− |
| 4,172 | Belcourt ND | 1,547 | $91K | 27.7% | 0.0% | 47% | C− |
| 4,173 | Lincoln MO | 1,197 | $63K | 12.8% | 1.8% | 15% | C− |
| 4,174 | Somerset OH | 1,482 | $55K | 17.6% | 5.2% | 6% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,794 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 7% | 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 Belcourt, the top three, the last and three more from North Dakota.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2024, 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 Belcourt: questions
What is the median household income in Belcourt?
$90,568 (±$66,021) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $76,657 across North Dakota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Belcourt?
27.7%, against 10.8% across North Dakota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Belcourt?
11 minutes each way on average, against 18 across North Dakota and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Belcourt work?
47% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Rolla (8%, 6 mi), Fargo (5%, 192 mi), Dunseith (5%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Belcourt walkable?
Belcourt is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.0 out of 20, and 18% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Belcourt without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Belcourt, from the people who make the trip.
More of Belcourt
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.