F. M. Walcott House · Photo: Ammodramus · CC0Valentine has some of the lowest unemployment in the country, with hardly anyone out of work
Household incomes here are lower than in 79% of U.S. towns. Valentine grades C+ for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Home is the office for 2% of workers; Nebraska has 11%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Valentine stands out on work
What’s behind Valentine’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Valentine is better than 44% of U.S. towns, #37 of 57 in Nebraska. Unemployment holds Valentine’s grade up (hardly any, U.S. 5.2%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns). It also does well on the poverty rate.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Valentine could be anywhere from C to B+.
About 15 minutes to work from Valentine
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Valentine workers work from home, vs 11% across Nebraska. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,218 commuters (the 2% who work from home are left out). Across Nebraska: 86% 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.
A workday in Valentine: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 694 residents head out to work, 588 work right here, and 851 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 (1.12 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.
Where Valentine goes to work
Where Valentine clocks in
4% of workers
3% 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.
What work there is in Valentine: 1,439 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Valentine, 2013 → 2023: 1,550 → 1,439. 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 Valentine’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Half of Valentine commutes less than 2 miles
About 26% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Valentine
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,245 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). 11.1% of Valentine households have no vehicle (Nebraska 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Valentine’s commuters take a bus or train.
Valentine next to U.S. towns of 1,800 to 3,600: 2,761st of 5,278 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 191 | Township 2 NE | 3,213 | $116K | 4.0% | 1.5% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 296 | Valley NE | 3,412 | $110K | 5.3% | 2.1% | 14% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 368 | Beaver Lake NE | 2,114 | $122K | 1.7% | 3.0% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,759 | Oak Grove MS | 2,098 | $82K | 8.3% | 8.0% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,760 | Graysville AL | 1,855 | $70K | 10.6% | 7.1% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,761 | Valentine NE | 2,635 | $57K | 9.1% | 0.0% | 46% | C+ |
| 2,762 | David City NE | 3,068 | $66K | 15.1% | 0.1% | 40% | C+ |
| 2,763 | Falconer NY | 2,210 | $60K | 10.9% | 3.5% | 9% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,278 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Valentine, the top three, the last and three more from Nebraska.
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 Valentine: questions
What is the median household income in Valentine?
$56,898 (±$27,539) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $76,475 across Nebraska and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Valentine?
9.1%, against 10.6% across Nebraska and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Valentine?
15 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Nebraska and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Valentine work?
46% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Mission (4%, 30 mi), O'Neill (3%, 101 mi), Two Strike (3%, 30 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Valentine walkable?
Valentine is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.2 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Valentine without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Valentine, from the people who make the trip.
More of Valentine
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.