Photo: Jmiller wiki · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Brilliant trail those of 94% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 16.2% of residents, next to 13.3% across Ohio. The two grades for Brilliant are D for jobs and income and B for walkability. 5% of workers work from home; Ohio has 13%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The short version on getting to work from Brilliant
Stores, warehouses and trucking
60% of the jobs in Brilliant are in trade, transport and utilities, against 25% of the jobs its residents hold. The jobs ↓
The jobs in Brilliant pay better than its residents’ jobs
62% of the jobs based in Brilliant pay over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year), against 46% of the jobs Brilliant residents hold. 95% of the jobs here are held by people who live outside Brilliant. The jobs ↓
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 493 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How Brilliant earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Brilliant is better than 8% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Brilliant’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($43,914, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (4.3%) is left out: Brilliant’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Brilliant could be anywhere from D− to B−.
What Brilliant’s employers do
322 jobs are based in Brilliant.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Brilliant, 2013 → 2023: 375 → 322. 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 Brilliant’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Brilliant by day and by night
On a workday 476 residents head out to work, 17 work right here, and 305 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,000 people are in Brilliant on a workday afternoon, 14% fewer than live here.
0.65 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
18% of working residents work in Steubenville
Where Brilliant clocks in
18% 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.
Brilliant’s commute takes about 20 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Brilliant workers work from home, vs 13% across Ohio. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 544 commuters (the 5% 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.
The distance from Brilliant to work
About 22% 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.
Most trips from Brilliant start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Brilliant is more walkable than 60% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.7% across Ohio, on an EPA index of 5.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 575 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). 11.2% of Brilliant households have no vehicle (Ohio 7.5%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Brilliant’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Brilliant ranks: 3,691st of 4,312 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 41 | Millcreek Township OH | 1,562 | $151K | 2.3% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 48 | Bratenahl OH | 1,396 | $138K | 4.4% | 0.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 55 | Coldstream OH | 1,540 | $232K | 0.6% | 1.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,689 | Cohoe AK | 1,598 | $64K | 17.7% | 11.2% | — | D |
| 3,690 | Talmage CA | 1,128 | $45K | 23.0% | 6.5% | 1% | D |
| 3,691 | Brilliant OH | 1,213 | $44K | 16.2% | 4.3% | 3% | D |
| 3,692 | Republic WA | 1,016 | $60K | 16.4% | 17.0% | 42% | D |
| 3,693 | Brooks ME | 1,023 | $59K | 19.1% | 4.4% | 2% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 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 Brilliant, the top three, the last and three more from Ohio.
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 Brilliant: questions
What is the median household income in Brilliant?
$43,914 (±$15,491) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,389 across Ohio and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Brilliant?
16.2%, against 13.3% across Ohio and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Brilliant?
20 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Ohio and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Brilliant work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Steubenville (18%, 7 mi), Weirton (8%, 11 mi), Wheeling (4%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Brilliant walkable?
Brilliant is more walkable than 60% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 5.6 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Brilliant 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 Brilliant, from the people who make the trip.
More of Brilliant
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.