Major's Inn and Gilbert Block · Photo: Doug Kerr from Albany, New York, United States · CC BY-SA 2.0Most of Butternuts commutes out: there are 0.4 jobs for every working resident
The two grades for Butternuts are B− for jobs and income and C for walkability. Butternuts has 233 jobs, against 576 working residents. Only 7% work in Butternuts itself; outside it, Oneonta draws the most (7%, 12 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Butternuts apart on work
Where Butternuts’ Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Butternuts is better than 52% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Butternuts’ grade up (5.5%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down. It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (4.1%) is left out: Butternuts’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, Butternuts could be anywhere from C to B+.
The daily flow of workers through Butternuts
On a workday 535 residents head out to work, 41 work right here, and 192 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,300 people are in Butternuts on a workday afternoon, 21% 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.
The towns that employ Butternuts’ residents
Where Butternuts clocks in
7% of workers
6% 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.
Butternuts is a services town
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Butternuts, 2013 → 2023: 220 → 233. 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 Butternuts’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Butternuts, about 31 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Butternuts workers work from home, vs 15% across New York. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 784 commuters (the 11% who work from home are left out). Across New York: 57% drive alone, 25% 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 Butternuts commutes less than 17 miles
About 28% 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 Butternuts, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Butternuts is more walkable than 34% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 32.9% across New York, on an EPA index of 4.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 880 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). 4.5% of Butternuts households have no vehicle (New York 29.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Butternuts’ commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 5,381 U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,200, Butternuts comes 1,922nd on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 8 | Atlantic Beach NY | 1,723 | $166K | 1.8% | 3.1% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,920 | Rutherford College NC | 1,220 | $68K | 7.7% | 2.2% | 1% | B− |
| 1,921 | Columbia City OR | 1,946 | $97K | 9.4% | 3.1% | 1% | B− |
| 1,922 | Butternuts NY | 1,649 | $90K | 5.5% | 4.1% | 7% | B− |
| 1,923 | South Woodbury Township PA | 2,093 | $75K | 12.7% | 1.6% | 9% | B− |
| 1,924 | Clinton Township PA | 1,302 | $86K | 9.0% | 4.0% | 2% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,381 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Butternuts, the top three, the last and three more from New York.
Next door is work for 15% of Butternuts
The biggest share goes to Norwich (5%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Butternuts workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Butternuts | – | B− | C | 31 min | $90,313 |
| Norwich | 5% | B | B− | 18 min | $63,226 |
| Guilford | under 4% | C | D | 28 min | $73,681 |
| Morris | 5% | C | C− | 26 min | $76,056 |
| New Berlin | 5% | D | C− | 20 min | $62,159 |
| Unadilla | under 4% | C− | B | 23 min | $56,484 |
| Otego | under 4% | C− | C+ | 22 min | $77,553 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Butternuts’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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Butternuts: questions
What is the median household income in Butternuts?
$90,313 (±$19,267) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $85,974 across New York and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Butternuts?
5.5%, against 14.0% across New York and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Butternuts?
31 minutes each way on average, against 33 across New York and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Butternuts work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Oneonta (7%, 12 mi), Oneonta (6%, 13 mi), Morris (5%, 6 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Butternuts walkable?
Butternuts is more walkable than 34% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 4.0 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Butternuts without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Butternuts, from the people who make the trip.
More of Butternuts
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.