Photo: Smerdis · CC BY-SA 4.0Clayton has lower household incomes than 73% of U.S. towns
Jobs and income earn Clayton D; getting around on foot earns it A−. 19.5% of residents are in poverty; New York has 14.0%. About one in four work in Clayton itself; outside it, Clayton draws the most (32%, 2 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Clayton
Clayton and Clayton trade workers both ways
Clayton is the top workplace for Clayton residents (32%) and also where the most people who work in Clayton come from (30% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Clayton is where the jobs are
Clayton has 1,023 jobs, 1.7 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Clayton are quick
The average trip to work takes 22 minutes, against 33 across New York. That’s about 84 hours a year less on the road than the typical New York worker. 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; with 599 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Clayton
On income, poverty and job access, Clayton is better than 9% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Clayton’s grade.
Unemployment (2.9%) is left out: Clayton’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, Clayton could be anywhere from D− to C.
The daily trip into Clayton
Where Clayton clocks in
32% 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.
The daily flow of workers through Clayton
On a workday 448 residents head out to work, 151 work right here, and 872 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,100 people are in Clayton on a workday afternoon, 26% more than live here.
1.7 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
Getting to work from Clayton takes about 22 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Clayton workers work from home, vs 15% across New York. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 768 commuters (the 8% 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.
What the 1,023 jobs in Clayton are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Clayton, 2013 → 2023: 703 → 1,023. 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 Clayton’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Half of Clayton commutes less than 17 miles
About 26% 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 Clayton, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Clayton is more walkable than 84% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 12.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 32.9% across New York, on an EPA index of 7.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 834 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). 10.7% of Clayton households have no vehicle (New York 29.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Clayton’s commuters take a bus or train.
Clayton is 4,559th of 5,381 U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,200 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,557 | Summerhill Township PA | 1,203 | $59K | 18.0% | 3.5% | 5% | D |
| 4,558 | Marionville MO | 2,108 | $50K | 21.0% | 9.7% | 6% | D |
| 4,559 | Clayton NY | 1,656 | $61K | 19.5% | 2.9% | 25% | D |
| 4,560 | St. Pauls NC | 2,109 | $37K | 37.7% | 8.8% | 7% | D |
| 4,561 | Clymer PA | 1,304 | $44K | 18.3% | 12.1% | 2% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Clayton, the top three, the last and three more from New York.
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 Clayton: questions
What is the median household income in Clayton?
$60,573 (±$16,031) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $85,974 across New York and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Clayton?
19.5%, against 14.0% across New York and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Clayton?
22 minutes each way on average, against 33 across New York and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Clayton work?
25% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Clayton (32%, 2 mi), Watertown (12%, 20 mi), Alexandria (7%, 12 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Clayton walkable?
Clayton is more walkable than 84% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.6 out of 20, and 13% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Clayton 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 Clayton, from the people who make the trip.
More of Clayton
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.