Photo: Tma169 · CC BY-SA 4.038% of Bowling Green’s residents are college students
A typical one-way commute lasts 18 minutes (Ohio 23, U.S. 26). Jobs and income earn Bowling Green C+; getting around on foot earns it A. About one in three work in Bowling Green; the top destination outside it is Toledo (10%, 20 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Bowling Green at work: what stands out
A young workforce
32% of Bowling Green’s working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
Commutes from Bowling Green are quick
The average trip to work takes 18 minutes, against 23 across Ohio. That’s about 38 hours a year less on the road than the typical Ohio worker. Time on the road ↓
Bowling Green draws workers from far and wide
The 15,553 jobs in Bowling Green are filled from a wide area. Bowling Green’s own residents hold 24% and the ten next-biggest home towns 21%; the other 55% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
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.
How Bowling Green earns its Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Bowling Green’s grade up (ahead of 66% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (16.7%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (28% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 16.7%, against 28.6% for all residents. Unemployment (5.7%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($82,787), since student households pull the household median down ($45,154).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Bowling Green could be anywhere from C to B−.
The 15,553 jobs based in Bowling Green
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Bowling Green, 2013 → 2023: 14,743 → 15,553. 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 Bowling Green’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from Bowling Green: about 18 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Bowling Green workers work from home, vs 13% across Ohio. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 13,234 commuters (the 11% who work from home are left out). Across Ohio: 86% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Where the trip to work from Bowling Green ends
Where Bowling Green clocks in
10% of workers
4% of workers
4% 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.
Who commutes out of Bowling Green, and who commutes in
On a workday 7,285 residents head out to work, 3,721 work right here, and 11,832 people come in from elsewhere.
About 36,000 people are in Bowling Green on a workday afternoon, 15% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.41 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.
How far Bowling Green’s workers travel
About 21% 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.
Bowling Green is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Bowling Green is more walkable than 86% of U.S. towns, #52 of 993 in Ohio. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 10.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.7% across Ohio, on an EPA index of 8.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 14,787 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). 9.4% of Bowling Green households have no vehicle (Ohio 7.5%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Bowling Green’s commuters take a bus or train.
1,055th of 1,334: where Bowling Green ranks among U.S. towns of 22,000 to 42,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Springfield VA | 22,532 | $163K | 1.9% | 1.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Upper Dublin Township PA | 27,258 | $168K | 3.2% | 1.9% | 8% | A+ |
| 3 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 11% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 6 | Upper Arlington OH | 35,893 | $155K | 3.3% | 2.0% | 7% | A+ |
| 7 | Hudson OH | 23,085 | $171K | 3.7% | 1.3% | 14% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 12 | Liberty Township OH | 40,625 | $187K | 1.6% | 2.5% | 8% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,053 | Norristown PA | 35,911 | $67K | 18.5% | 7.2% | 6% | C+ |
| 1,054 | Austin MN | 26,689 | $68K | 12.5% | 4.5% | 57% | C+ |
| 1,055 | Bowling Green OH | 31,182 | $45K | 28.6% | 5.7% | 34% | C+ |
| 1,056 | University FL | 41,902 | $60K | 27.0% | 8.4% | 9% | C+ |
| 1,057 | Foothill Farms CA | 36,435 | $68K | 17.6% | 7.1% | 3% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,334 | Barstow CA | 24,804 | $53K | 23.1% | 11.9% | 17% | 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 Bowling Green, the top three, the last and three more from Ohio.
Bowling Green and the towns next door
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Bowling Green workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowling Green | – | C+ | A | 18 min | $45,154 |
| Center Township | under 1% | A | C− | 21 min | $108,056 |
| Plain Township | under 1% | B+ | D− | 23 min | $73,594 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Bowling Green’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. 38% 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 Bowling Green: questions
What is the median household income in Bowling Green?
$45,154 (±$4,341) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,389 across Ohio and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Bowling Green?
28.6% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 16.7%. Ohio: 13.3%.
How long is the commute from Bowling Green?
18 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Ohio and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Bowling Green work?
34% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Toledo (10%, 20 mi), Findlay (4%, 23 mi), Perrysburg (4%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Bowling Green walkable?
Bowling Green is more walkable than 86% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.0 out of 20, and 11% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Bowling Green without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Bowling Green, from the people who make the trip.
More of Bowling Green
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.