Photo: Ian Poellet · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Gold Hill trail those of 79% of U.S. towns
11% of workers have no commute at all; Oregon has 19%. 22.0% of residents live below the poverty line, where Oregon as a whole has 11.9%. Gold Hill grades D for jobs and income and C+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Gold Hill, in a few figures
Income, poverty and work: Gold Hill’s grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Gold Hill is better than 10% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Gold Hill’s grade up (ahead of 28% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (1.2%) is left out: Gold Hill’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, Gold Hill could be anywhere from D to C−.
33% of working residents work in Medford
Where Gold Hill clocks in
33% 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.
Who works in Gold Hill, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 443 residents head out to work, 9 work right here, and 280 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,200 people are in Gold Hill on a workday afternoon, 12% fewer than live here.
0.64 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 2024, primary jobs.
A place that makes things: 34% of Gold Hill’s jobs are in goods
289 jobs are based in Gold Hill.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Gold Hill, 2014 → 2024: 235 → 289. 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 Gold Hill’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Time on the road from Gold Hill: about 20 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Gold Hill workers work from home, vs 19% across Oregon. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 497 commuters (the 11% who work from home are left out). Across Oregon: 80% drive alone, 3% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Short hops and long hauls from Gold Hill
About 18% 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.
Few in Gold Hill walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Gold Hill is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Gold Hill near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 561 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 0.3 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 47% 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). 6.0% of Gold Hill households have no vehicle (Oregon 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Gold Hill’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 5,400 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800, Gold Hill comes 4,424th on jobs and income
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 183 | Stafford OR | 1,600 | $163K | 6.9% | 5.0% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 190 | Coburg OR | 1,373 | $98K | 1.5% | 8.9% | 6% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 295 | Aurora OR | 1,113 | $108K | 6.1% | 2.1% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,422 | Ontonagon MI | 1,264 | $50K | 10.4% | 3.6% | 36% | D |
| 4,423 | Morris OK | 1,340 | $59K | 16.3% | 4.3% | 6% | D |
| 4,424 | Gold Hill OR | 1,317 | $56K | 22.0% | 1.2% | 2% | D |
| 4,425 | Big Sandy TX | 1,339 | $41K | 29.4% | 15.1% | 9% | D |
| 4,426 | Twisp WA | 1,126 | $60K | 13.3% | 9.9% | 14% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Gold Hill, the top three, the last and three more from Oregon.
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 Gold Hill: questions
What is the median household income in Gold Hill?
$56,359 (±$8,321) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,011 across Oregon and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Gold Hill?
22.0%, against 11.9% across Oregon and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Gold Hill?
20 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Oregon and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Gold Hill work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Medford (33%, 12 mi), Central Point (7%, 8 mi), Grants Pass (7%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Gold Hill walkable?
Gold Hill is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 6.3 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Gold Hill without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Gold Hill, from the people who make the trip.
More of Gold Hill
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.