Heppner Hotel · Photo: Ian Poellet · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Heppner trail those of 88% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 15.8% of residents, next to 11.9% for Oregon as a whole. The two grades for Heppner are D− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. About one in five stay in Heppner for work; outside it, Portland is the main destination (9%, 150 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Heppner apart on work
Heppner’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Heppner is Portland, 150 miles away as the crow flies. 9% of working residents (37) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Heppner is where the jobs are
Heppner has 622 jobs, 1.5 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Heppner are quick
The average trip to work takes 10 minutes, against 23 across Oregon. That’s about 100 hours a year less on the road than the typical Oregon worker. Time on the road ↓
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 414 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Heppner
On income, poverty and job access, Heppner is better than 4% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Heppner’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (near the bottom of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.8%) is left out: Heppner’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, Heppner could be anywhere from D− to C+.
Heppner’s commute, mile by mile
About 38% 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.
The daily commute in and out of Heppner
On a workday 325 residents head out to work, 89 work right here, and 533 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,300 people are in Heppner on a workday afternoon, 18% more than live here.
1.5 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
About 10 minutes each way for Heppner’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 3.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Heppner workers work from home, vs 19% across Oregon. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 455 commuters (the 12% 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.
Where Heppner’s workforce comes from
Where Heppner clocks in
5% 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.
Mostly health care, schools and offices in Heppner
622 jobs are based in Heppner.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Heppner, 2013 → 2023: 455 → 622. 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 Heppner’s own residents hold wherever they work.
In Heppner, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Heppner is more walkable than 69% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 8.4% across Oregon, on an EPA index of 6.1.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 518 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). 9.1% of Heppner households have no vehicle (Oregon 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Heppner’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Heppner compares with U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 121 | Coburg OR | 1,373 | $98K | 1.5% | 8.9% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 190 | Aurora OR | 1,113 | $108K | 6.1% | 2.1% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 285 | Adair Village OR | 1,010 | $99K | 3.6% | 4.4% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,442 | Robbins NC | 1,305 | $53K | 22.1% | 0.7% | 4% | D− |
| 3,443 | Mooreland OK | 1,122 | $55K | 22.8% | 0.0% | 9% | D− |
| 3,444 | Heppner OR | 1,128 | $50K | 15.8% | 2.8% | 21% | D− |
| 3,445 | Wolfhurst OH | 1,058 | $29K | 33.3% | 19.7% | 2% | D− |
| 3,446 | West Jefferson NC | 1,348 | $47K | 20.8% | 12.7% | 13% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Heppner, 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 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 Heppner: questions
What is the median household income in Heppner?
$49,521 (±$18,459) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,011 across Oregon and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Heppner?
15.8%, against 11.9% across Oregon and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Heppner?
10 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Oregon and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Heppner work?
21% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Portland (9%, 150 mi), Ione (5%, 16 mi), Pendleton (4%, 42 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Heppner walkable?
Heppner is more walkable than 69% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.1 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Heppner without a car?
0% 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 Heppner, from the people who make the trip.
More of Heppner
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.