Photo: Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0Household incomes in Portales are lower than in 87% of U.S. towns
The poverty rate is 28.1%, against 17.8% across New Mexico. For jobs and income Portales is better than 6% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns (A−). Home is the office for 4% of workers, where New Mexico as a whole has 12%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Portales stands out on work
Commutes from Portales are quick
The average trip to work takes 12 minutes, against 24 across New Mexico. That’s about 92 hours a year less on the road than the typical New Mexico worker. Time on the road ↓
Portales and Clovis trade workers both ways
Clovis is the top workplace for Portales residents (15%) and also where the most people who work in Portales come from (16% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
A young workforce
30% of Portales’ working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
Fewer than half of Portales workers earn over $40,000 a year
44% of Portales’ working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 18% earn $1,250 a month or less. The jobs ↓
Few Portales workers work from home
Only 4% of workers work from home, against 12% across New Mexico. Almost everyone here travels to a job. Time on the road ↓
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.
Income, poverty and work: Portales’ grade explained
Job access by car holds Portales’ grade up (ahead of 24% 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, Portales could be anywhere from D− to D.
The daily trip from Portales: about 12 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Portales workers work from home, vs 12% across New Mexico. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 4,977 commuters (the 4% 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.
15% of working residents work in Clovis
Where Portales clocks in
15% of workers
6% 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.
Inside Portales’ 4,396 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Portales, 2013 → 2023: 4,860 → 4,396. 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 Portales’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How a workday changes Portales
On a workday 2,790 residents head out to work, 1,934 work right here, and 2,462 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 (0.93 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.
How far Portales’ workers travel
About 25% 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.
In Portales, walking beats the bus
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 5,169 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). 10.8% of Portales households have no vehicle (New Mexico 5.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Portales’ commuters take a bus or train.
Portales and other U.S. towns of 8,000 to 16,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| 2 | Beverly Hills MI | 10,449 | $177K | 1.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Ladue MO | 8,934 | $250K | 1.1% | 1.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 478 | Los Alamos NM | 13,317 | $141K | 4.1% | 0.8% | 77% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,245 | Corrales NM | 8,484 | $102K | 7.0% | 6.3% | 7% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,057 | Bernalillo NM | 9,159 | $64K | 15.9% | 6.9% | 12% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 2,641 | Centralia IL | 11,863 | $48K | 24.3% | 11.2% | 26% | D |
| 2,642 | Natchez MS | 14,880 | $37K | 33.7% | 6.5% | 40% | D |
| 2,643 | Portales NM | 11,734 | $51K | 28.1% | 7.4% | 41% | D |
| 2,644 | Rio Grande City TX | 15,451 | $45K | 30.8% | 6.8% | 29% | D |
| 2,645 | Harrisburg Township IL | 9,656 | $46K | 25.9% | 8.8% | 27% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 2,695 | Roma TX | 11,543 | $25K | 37.1% | 12.4% | 22% | 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 Portales, the top three, the last and three more from New Mexico.
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 Portales: questions
What is the median household income in Portales?
$50,555 (±$4,369) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $64,059 across New Mexico and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Portales?
28.1%, against 17.8% across New Mexico and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Portales?
12 minutes each way on average, against 24 across New Mexico and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Portales work?
41% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Clovis (15%, 20 mi), Albuquerque (6%, 198 mi), Roswell (3%, 87 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Portales walkable?
Portales is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.5 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Portales 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 Portales, from the people who make the trip.
More of Portales
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.