Salem has fewer jobs than working residents: 0.2 for each
Home is the office for 0% of workers; New Mexico has 12%. Salem has 25 jobs, against 137 working residents. Hardly any stay in Salem for work; outside it, Las Cruces is the main destination (20%, 36 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Who works in Salem, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 136 residents head out to work, 1 work right here, and 24 people come in from elsewhere.
About 800 people are in Salem on a workday afternoon, 12% fewer than live here.
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 people from Salem work
Where Salem clocks in
20% of workers
10% of workers
8% 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.
96% of the jobs in Salem make or build things
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
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 Salem’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Each way, about 29 minutes from Salem
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Salem workers work from home, vs 12% across New Mexico. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 408 commuters (the 0% 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.
Half of Salem commutes less than 38 miles
About 40% 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.
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 Salem: questions
What is the median household income in Salem?
$31,386 (±$15,093) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $64,059 across New Mexico and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Salem?
54.1%, against 17.8% across New Mexico and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Salem?
29 minutes each way on average, against 24 across New Mexico and 26 nationally. 0% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Salem work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Las Cruces (20%, 36 mi), Hatch (10%, 4 mi), Albuquerque (8%, 168 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Salem 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 Salem, from the people who make the trip.
More of Salem
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.