Photo: Brenda Riskey · Public domainGrand Forks at work: jobs, income and the commute
For jobs and income Grand Forks is better than 56% of U.S. towns (B); for walkability it is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (A). Transit is limited for a town this walkable: about 5.2 trips an hour stop near the typical resident at the evening peak, against 3.0 in Fargo. About two in three work in Grand Forks itself; outside it, Fargo draws the most (6%, 74 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Grand Forks and work: the main findings
How Grand Forks earns its Jobs & income grade
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Grand Forks’ grade. It also does well on the poverty rate and job access by car.
20% of Grand Forks’ residents are college students, and off-campus students count in the Census poverty figures. Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (16% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 9.7%, against 15.5% for all residents. Unemployment (2.4%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($97,770), since student households pull the household median down ($63,627).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Grand Forks could be anywhere from B− to B+.
How a workday changes Grand Forks
On a workday 7,540 residents head out to work, 17,690 work right here, and 13,975 people come in from elsewhere.
About 67,000 people are in Grand Forks on a workday afternoon, 11% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.26 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 towns that employ Grand Forks’ residents
Where Grand Forks clocks in
6% of workers
4% of workers
2% 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.
Jobs in Grand Forks: what the 31,665 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Grand Forks, 2013 → 2023: 32,708 → 31,665. 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 Grand Forks’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 15 minutes in Grand Forks
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Grand Forks workers work from home, vs 8% across North Dakota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 31,098 commuters (the 7% 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.
Miles to work from Grand Forks
About 16% 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.
Grand Forks is easy on foot, hard by bus
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 5.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, above the 4.2% across North Dakota.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 33,276 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 96% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 70% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 5.2 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 85% 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). 8.2% of Grand Forks households have no vehicle (North Dakota 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Grand Forks’ commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 737 U.S. towns of 42,000 to 81,000, Grand Forks comes 475th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Lakeville MN | 79,270 | $139K | 2.9% | 2.0% | 11% | A+ |
| 3 | Fulshear TX | 64,630 | $187K | 1.6% | 2.8% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 349 | Bismarck ND | 77,963 | $78K | 9.3% | 2.5% | 69% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 473 | Burien WA | 51,859 | $91K | 12.9% | 7.0% | 6% | B |
| 474 | Baldwin Park CA | 68,880 | $81K | 13.5% | 6.0% | 7% | B |
| 475 | Grand Forks ND | 60,365 | $64K | 15.5% | 2.4% | 70% | B |
| 476 | Ormond Beach FL | 44,692 | $69K | 10.1% | 3.5% | 18% | B |
| 477 | Hackensack NJ | 46,380 | $84K | 12.1% | 7.7% | 12% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 497 | Minot ND | 47,308 | $73K | 11.1% | 3.4% | 63% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 737 | 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 Grand Forks, the top three, the last and three more from North Dakota.
Grand Forks and the towns next door
The biggest share goes to East Grand Forks (4%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Grand Forks workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Forks | – | B | A | 15 min | $63,627 |
| Grand Forks Township | 1% | — | — | 27 min | — |
| Rye Township | under 1% | — | — | 37 min | — |
| Falconer Township | under 1% | — | — | 21 min | — |
| Brenna Township | under 1% | — | — | 16 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Grand Forks Township, Rye Township, Falconer Township and Brenna Township: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Grand Forks’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.
- Students. 20% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Grand Forks: questions
What is the median household income in Grand Forks?
$63,627 (±$2,587) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $76,657 across North Dakota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Grand Forks?
15.5% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 9.7%. North Dakota: 10.8%.
How long is the commute from Grand Forks?
15 minutes each way on average, against 18 across North Dakota and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Grand Forks work?
70% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Fargo (6%, 74 mi), East Grand Forks (4%, 4 mi), Bismarck (2%, 188 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Grand Forks walkable?
Grand Forks is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 14.3 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Grand Forks without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. 70% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Grand Forks, from the people who make the trip.
More of Grand Forks
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.