Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0Households in Amargosa Valley have lower incomes than those in 84% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 0% of workers, next to 12% for Nevada as a whole. 36.7% of residents live below the poverty line; Nevada has 12.4%. Jobs and income earn Amargosa Valley D−; getting around on foot earns it D.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Amargosa Valley, in a few figures
Amargosa Valley makes and builds things
82% of the jobs based in Amargosa Valley are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Amargosa Valley residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 27%. The jobs ↓
A big share show a job far from home
53% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
Amargosa Valley’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Amargosa Valley is Beatty, 34 miles away as the crow flies. 21% of working residents (84) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 393 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Amargosa Valley
On income, poverty and job access, Amargosa Valley is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Amargosa Valley’s grade.
Unemployment (1.2%) is left out: Amargosa Valley’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Amargosa Valley could be anywhere from D− to C−.
Goods jobs make up 82% of work in Amargosa Valley
316 jobs are based in Amargosa Valley.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Amargosa Valley, 2014 → 2024: 139 → 316. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Amargosa Valley’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How far it is to work from Amargosa Valley
About 53% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Amargosa Valley on a workday afternoon
On a workday 323 residents head out to work, 70 work right here, and 246 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 (0.80 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
21% of working residents work in Beatty
Where Amargosa Valley clocks in
12% of workers
7% 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.
Each way, about 12 minutes from Amargosa Valley
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Amargosa Valley workers work from home, vs 12% across Nevada. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 310 commuters (the 0% who work from home are left out). Across Nevada: 80% drive alone, 3% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
In Amargosa Valley, the car does most of the work
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 4.6% across Nevada.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 310 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). 4.8% of Amargosa Valley households have no vehicle (Nevada 7.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Amargosa Valley’s commuters take a bus or train.
U.S. towns of 1,000 to 2,000, and where Amargosa Valley sits
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 122 | Mogul NV | 1,050 | $145K | 2.3% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 684 | Verdi NV | 1,012 | $81K | 3.0% | 6.4% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,087 | Osino NV | 1,341 | $93K | 1.0% | 0.0% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 6,137 | Wilcox Township MI | 1,186 | $45K | 29.5% | 7.1% | 2% | D− |
| 6,138 | Briley Township MI | 1,828 | $43K | 21.3% | 2.8% | 13% | D− |
| 6,139 | Amargosa Valley NV | 1,445 | $53K | 36.7% | 1.2% | 18% | D− |
| 6,140 | Samson AL | 1,891 | $33K | 37.4% | 11.6% | 8% | D− |
| 6,141 | Carbon Hill AL | 1,723 | $25K | 39.4% | 2.3% | 6% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 6,308 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Amargosa Valley, the top three, the last and three more from Nevada.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2024, 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 Amargosa Valley: questions
What is the median household income in Amargosa Valley?
$53,139 (±$27,977) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,260 across Nevada and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Amargosa Valley?
36.7%, against 12.4% across Nevada and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Amargosa Valley?
12 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Nevada and 26 nationally. 0% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Amargosa Valley work?
18% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Beatty (21%, 34 mi), Tonopah (12%, 114 mi), Paradise (7%, 81 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Amargosa Valley walkable?
Amargosa Valley is more walkable than 12% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.8 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Amargosa Valley without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Amargosa Valley, from the people who make the trip.
More of Amargosa Valley
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.