Household incomes in Rock Springs top those of 75% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 10.9% of residents (New Mexico 17.8%). The two grades for Rock Springs are C+ for jobs and income and C− for walkability. Home is the office for 2% 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
What’s behind Rock Springs’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Rock Springs is better than 40% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Rock Springs’ grade up ($97,155, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 10% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.0%) is left out: Rock Springs’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Rock Springs could be anywhere from D− to B+.
Who commutes out of Rock Springs, and who commutes in
On a workday 96 residents head out to work, none work right here, and 0 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.
0.00 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
32% of working residents work in Gallup
Where Rock Springs clocks in
32% 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.
Rock Springs’ commute takes about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Rock Springs workers work from home, vs 12% across New Mexico. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 525 commuters (the 2% 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Rock Springs
About 36% 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 Rock Springs is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Rock Springs is more walkable than 18% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Rock Springs near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 537 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 1.3 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 61% 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). 5.0% of Rock Springs households have no vehicle (New Mexico 5.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Rock Springs’ commuters take a bus or train.
Rock Springs is 1,365th of 3,133 U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400 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 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 386 | Santa Ana Pueblo NM | 1,026 | $86K | 5.5% | 2.9% | 19% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 663 | Barton NM | 1,302 | $82K | 6.6% | 5.8% | 1% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 790 | Atoka NM | 1,347 | $84K | 3.3% | 0.0% | 3% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,363 | Rome City IN | 1,317 | $71K | 11.8% | 4.9% | 2% | C+ |
| 1,364 | Houston PA | 1,126 | $65K | 20.0% | 3.0% | 2% | C+ |
| 1,365 | Rock Springs NM | 1,013 | $97K | 10.9% | 2.0% | 0% | C+ |
| 1,366 | Lookout Mountain AL | 1,120 | $80K | 12.8% | 0.0% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,367 | Spring Grove MN | 1,206 | $60K | 4.0% | 7.2% | 18% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 0% | 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 Rock Springs, the top three, the last and three more from New Mexico.
Rock Springs and the towns next door
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Rock Springs workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rock Springs | – | C+ | C− | 24 min | $97,155 |
| Yah-ta-hey | under 2% | — | — | 47 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Yah-ta-hey: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Rock Springs’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.
- Two counts of out-of-state work. The Census survey asks workers where they work: 6% of Rock Springs workers work outside New Mexico. The job records count 21% at employers in other states. The records use the address the employer reports and skip the self-employed, so the two can differ.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Rock Springs: questions
What is the median household income in Rock Springs?
$97,155 (±$61,235) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $64,059 across New Mexico and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Rock Springs?
10.9%, against 17.8% across New Mexico and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Rock Springs?
24 minutes each way on average, against 24 across New Mexico and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Rock Springs work?
0% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Gallup (32%, 9 mi), St. Michaels (18%, 15 mi), Albuquerque (9%, 128 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Rock Springs walkable?
Rock Springs is more walkable than 18% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 5.5 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Rock Springs without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Rock Springs, from the people who make the trip.
More of Rock Springs
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.