Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel · CC BY-SA 4.0Ithaca is a college town: 52% of residents are students
Measured by family income, Ithaca is ahead of 78% of U.S. towns. Ithaca grades B for jobs and income and A for walkability. For 25% of workers, the job is at home, where New York as a whole has 15%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Ithaca apart on work
Commutes from Ithaca are quick
The average trip to work takes 19 minutes, against 33 across New York. That’s about 107 hours a year less on the road than the typical New York worker. Time on the road ↓
38% of Ithaca works in Ithaca
3,533 working residents, 38%, have their main job in Ithaca, 2.8 miles away. That’s twice as many as work in Ithaca itself. The commute map ↓
A young workforce
34% of Ithaca’s working residents are 29 or younger, about one in three. The jobs ↓
Home offices are common in Ithaca
25% of Ithaca workers work from home, against 15% across New York. Time on the road ↓
Most Ithaca residents work close to home
60% of working residents have their main job less than 10 miles from home. How far ↓
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.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Ithaca
On family income, poverty and job access, Ithaca is better than 61% of U.S. towns, #334 of 758 in New York. Family income holds Ithaca’s grade up ($120,341, U.S. $99,999); the poverty rate pulls it down (12.7%, U.S. 11.9%). It also does well on job access by car.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (36% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 12.7%, against 30.4% for all residents. Unemployment (7.3%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($120,341), since student households pull the household median down ($48,784).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Ithaca could be anywhere from C+ to A.
About 19 minutes each way for Ithaca’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ithaca workers work from home, vs 15% across New York. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 11,036 commuters (the 25% 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.
38% of working residents work in Ithaca
Where Ithaca clocks in
38% of workers
5% 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 12,253 jobs based in Ithaca
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ithaca, 2013 → 2023: 12,821 → 12,253. 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 Ithaca’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where in the region Ithaca works
About 25% 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.
Ithaca on a workday afternoon
On a workday 7,669 residents head out to work, 1,586 work right here, and 10,667 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 (1.32 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Ithaca is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ithaca is more walkable than 94% of U.S. towns, #119 of 758 in New York. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 49.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 32.9% across New York, on an EPA index of 9.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 14,653 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). 27.4% of Ithaca households have no vehicle (New York 29.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 12% of Ithaca’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Ithaca is 710th among 1,211 U.S. towns of 24,000 to 45,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Upper Dublin Township PA | 27,258 | $168K | 3.2% | 1.9% | 8% | A+ |
| 2 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 11% | A+ |
| 3 | Leawood KS | 34,093 | $186K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 22 | Eastchester NY | 34,015 | $156K | 4.8% | 2.6% | 10% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 45 | Clifton Park NY | 37,775 | $133K | 2.3% | 2.0% | 13% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 63 | Valley Stream NY | 40,379 | $133K | 5.5% | 2.8% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 708 | Springfield Township OH | 26,958 | $81K | 10.4% | 4.4% | 9% | B |
| 709 | Rohnert Park CA | 44,811 | $99K | 10.5% | 5.1% | 12% | B |
| 710 | Ithaca NY | 33,632 | $49K | 30.4% | 7.3% | 17% | B |
| 711 | Pooler GA | 32,744 | $92K | 7.4% | 6.1% | 16% | B |
| 712 | Monroeville PA | 27,685 | $79K | 10.7% | 4.8% | 16% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,211 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 26% | 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 Ithaca, the top three, the last and three more from New York.
The towns around Ithaca
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Ithaca workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ithaca | – | B | A | 19 min | $48,784 |
| South Hill | under 1% | — | — | 18 min | — |
| Northwest Ithaca | under 1% | — | — | 16 min | — |
| East Ithaca | under 1% | — | — | 21 min | — |
| Cayuga Heights | under 1% | B+ | A | 13 min | $166,526 |
Same-state neighbors only. South Hill, Northwest Ithaca and East Ithaca: Census-designated places inside larger towns, graded as part of them. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Ithaca’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.
- Students. 52% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Ithaca: questions
What is the median household income in Ithaca?
$48,784 (±$3,693) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $85,974 across New York and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ithaca?
30.4% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 12.7%. New York: 14.0%.
How long is the commute from Ithaca?
19 minutes each way on average, against 33 across New York and 26 nationally. 25% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ithaca work?
17% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Ithaca (38%, 3 mi), New York City (5%, 181 mi), Lansing (3%, 9 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ithaca walkable?
Ithaca is more walkable than 94% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 9.0 out of 20, and 49% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ithaca without a car?
12% of commuters take transit and 27% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ithaca, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ithaca
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.