Friendship Free Library · Photo: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States · CC BY-SA 2.0Friendship has lower household incomes than 74% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 22.2% of residents, next to 14.0% across New York. Jobs and income earn Friendship D; getting around on foot earns it C+. 6% of workers work from home; New York has 15%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work and commuting in Friendship, in brief
Friendship makes and builds things
64% of the jobs based in Friendship are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Friendship residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 21%. The jobs ↓
Commutes from Friendship 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 ↓
The jobs in Friendship pay better than its residents’ jobs
76% of the jobs based in Friendship pay over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year), against 54% of the jobs Friendship residents hold. 93% of the jobs here are held by people who live outside Friendship. The jobs ↓
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 750 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Jobs & income in Friendship: the grade in detail
On income, poverty and job access, Friendship is better than 7% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Friendship’s grade.
Unemployment (4.5%) is left out: Friendship’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, Friendship could be anywhere from D− to C−.
In Friendship, 64% of jobs are in factories, building or farming
634 jobs are based in Friendship.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Friendship, 2014 → 2024: 452 → 634. 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 Friendship’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Friendship’s commute takes about 22 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Friendship workers work from home, vs 15% across New York. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 674 commuters (the 6% 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.
The daily commute in and out of Friendship
On a workday 706 residents head out to work, 44 work right here, and 590 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 (0.85 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.
12% of working residents work in Wellsville
Where Friendship clocks in
12% of workers
12% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Friendship
About 30% 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.
The commute in Friendship is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Friendship is more walkable than 42% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 32.9% across New York, on an EPA index of 5.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 715 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 under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% 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). 9.8% of Friendship households have no vehicle (New York 29.2%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Friendship’s commuters take a bus or train.
Friendship places 5,256th of 5,921 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,600
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 4 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Atlantic Beach NY | 1,723 | $166K | 1.8% | 3.1% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,254 | Johnston SC | 2,233 | $34K | 32.7% | 8.6% | 5% | D |
| 5,255 | Sangerville ME | 1,336 | $50K | 13.5% | 6.9% | 2% | D |
| 5,256 | Friendship NY | 1,926 | $60K | 22.2% | 4.5% | 6% | D |
| 5,257 | New Albion NY | 1,925 | $61K | 23.0% | 9.7% | 2% | D |
| 5,258 | York Township OH | 2,241 | $57K | 19.2% | 4.3% | 4% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,921 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 7% | 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 Friendship, the top three, the last and three more from New York.
21% of Friendship works in a bordering town
The biggest share goes to Amity (12%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Friendship workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friendship | – | D | C+ | 22 min | $59,750 |
| Amity | 12% | D | B | 23 min | $61,042 |
| Belfast | under 2% | C− | C− | 29 min | $64,954 |
| Cuba | 9% | B− | A− | 20 min | $75,903 |
| Wirt | under 2% | D− | C− | 31 min | $42,243 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Friendship’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 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 Friendship: questions
What is the median household income in Friendship?
$59,750 (±$7,444) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $85,974 across New York and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Friendship?
22.2%, against 14.0% across New York and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Friendship?
22 minutes each way on average, against 33 across New York and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Friendship work?
6% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Wellsville (12%, 12 mi), Amity (12%, 7 mi), Cuba (9%, 6 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Friendship walkable?
Friendship is more walkable than 42% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 5.3 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Friendship without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Friendship, from the people who make the trip.
More of Friendship
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.