El Rito has fewer jobs than working residents: 0.5 for each
53 jobs are based in El Rito; 98 of its residents have a job. El Rito grades B− for walkability. For 21% of workers, the job is at home (New Mexico 12%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 96 residents head out to work, 2 work right here, and 51 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.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
20% of working residents work in Los Alamos
Where El Rito clocks in
20% of workers
19% of workers
9% 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.
Most jobs in El Rito are in services
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in El Rito, 2013 → 2023: 4 → 53. 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 El Rito’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 23 minutes each way, about the NM average
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of El Rito workers work from home, vs 12% across New Mexico. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 348 commuters (the 21% who work from home are left out). Across New Mexico: 84% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from El Rito
About 41% 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.
The commute in El Rito is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, El Rito is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 42.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.4% across New Mexico, on an EPA index of 3.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 442 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). 0.0% of El Rito households have no vehicle (New Mexico 5.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of El Rito’s commuters take a bus or train.
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 El Rito: questions
What is the poverty rate in El Rito?
54.4%, against 17.8% across New Mexico and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from El Rito?
23 minutes each way on average, against 24 across New Mexico and 26 nationally. 21% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in El Rito work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Los Alamos (20%, 31 mi), Albuquerque (19%, 89 mi), Santa Fe (9%, 48 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is El Rito walkable?
El Rito is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 3.7 out of 20, and 43% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around El Rito without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from El Rito, from the people who make the trip.
More of El Rito
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.