Photo: Tedder · CC BY 4.0Most of Pilot Rock commutes out: there are 0.5 jobs for every working resident
About one in ten work in Pilot Rock; the top destination outside it is Pendleton (38%, 12 miles). There are 229 jobs in Pilot Rock, and 498 of its residents work somewhere. Jobs and income earn Pilot Rock C; getting around on foot earns it D−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Pilot Rock, in brief
What’s behind Pilot Rock’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Pilot Rock is better than 34% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Pilot Rock’s grade up ($89,091, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 2% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (6.5%) is left out: Pilot Rock’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, Pilot Rock could be anywhere from C− to B.
The towns that employ Pilot Rock’s residents
Where Pilot Rock clocks in
38% 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 workday shuffle in and out of Pilot Rock
On a workday 449 residents head out to work, 49 work right here, and 180 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Pilot Rock on a workday afternoon, 20% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Goods, not services: 55% of the jobs in Pilot Rock
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Pilot Rock, 2013 → 2023: 222 → 229. 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 Pilot Rock’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The trip to work from Pilot Rock: about 25 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Pilot Rock workers work from home, vs 19% across Oregon. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 491 commuters (the 16% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Pilot Rock
About 23% 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.
Driving is how Pilot Rock gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Pilot Rock is more walkable than 4% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Pilot Rock 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 587 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 1.5 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 64% 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). 5.9% of Pilot Rock households have no vehicle (Oregon 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Pilot Rock’s commuters take a bus or train.
Pilot Rock next to U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800: 2,803rd of 5,400 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% | 1% | 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% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 295 | Aurora OR | 1,113 | $108K | 6.1% | 2.1% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,801 | Ruhenstroth NV | 1,682 | $105K | 14.1% | 0.4% | 1% | C |
| 2,802 | Whitehorn Cove OK | 1,223 | $68K | 7.0% | 1.1% | 1% | C |
| 2,803 | Pilot Rock OR | 1,320 | $89K | 10.1% | 6.5% | 10% | C |
| 2,804 | Waterville WA | 1,156 | $79K | 7.8% | 2.9% | 13% | C |
| 2,805 | Huston Township PA | 1,306 | $81K | 11.2% | 4.0% | 1% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Pilot Rock, 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 Pilot Rock: questions
What is the median household income in Pilot Rock?
$89,091 (±$15,104) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,011 across Oregon and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Pilot Rock?
10.1%, against 11.9% across Oregon and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Pilot Rock?
25 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Oregon and 26 nationally. 16% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Pilot Rock work?
10% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Pendleton (38%, 12 mi), Mission (6%, 13 mi), Portland (5%, 185 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Pilot Rock walkable?
Pilot Rock is more walkable than 4% of U.S. towns (Walkability D−): an EPA walkability index of 4.4 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Pilot Rock 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 Pilot Rock, from the people who make the trip.
More of Pilot Rock
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.