Photo: Finetooth · CC BY-SA 3.0With 0.4 jobs for every working resident, most of Shady Cove works elsewhere
Employers in Shady Cove report 315 jobs for 888 working residents. For jobs and income Shady Cove is better than 12% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 65% of U.S. towns (B). Household incomes here are lower than in 78% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Shady Cove at work: what stands out
Shady Cove and Medford trade workers both ways
Medford is the top workplace for Shady Cove residents (30%) and also where the most people who work in Shady Cove come from (12% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Many jobs in Shady Cove pay little
27% of the jobs based in Shady Cove pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 888 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What’s behind Shady Cove’s Jobs & income grade
The poverty rate holds Shady Cove’s grade up (12.5%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 11% of U.S. towns).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Shady Cove could be anywhere from D− to B+.
30% of working residents work in Medford
Where Shady Cove clocks in
30% of workers
5% 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.
What Shady Cove’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Shady Cove, 2014 → 2024: 323 → 315. 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 Shady Cove’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How a workday changes Shady Cove
On a workday 840 residents head out to work, 48 work right here, and 267 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,500 people are in Shady Cove on a workday afternoon, 19% 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 2024, primary jobs.
Commuting from Shady Cove: about 23 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Shady Cove workers work from home, vs 19% across Oregon. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 782 commuters (the 20% 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.
How far Shady Cove goes to work
About 20% 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.
In Shady Cove, the car does most of the work
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 8.4% across Oregon, on an EPA index of 7.1.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 976 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). 7.2% of Shady Cove households have no vehicle (Oregon 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Shady Cove’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Shady Cove is 4,170th of 4,771 U.S. towns of 2,100 to 4,100
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 222 | Hubbard OR | 3,399 | $102K | 3.6% | 1.6% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 350 | Millersburg OR | 3,583 | $125K | 5.1% | 1.5% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 793 | North Plains OR | 3,414 | $118K | 2.9% | 6.4% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,168 | Texanna OK | 2,401 | $51K | 10.6% | 5.2% | 3% | D |
| 4,169 | South Alamo TX | 3,309 | $34K | 33.3% | 11.8% | <1% | D |
| 4,170 | Shady Cove OR | 3,039 | $57K | 12.5% | 7.3% | 5% | D |
| 4,171 | Cowpens SC | 2,257 | $39K | 29.1% | 1.9% | 1% | D |
| 4,172 | Home Township MI | 2,813 | $56K | 22.2% | 4.9% | 12% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,771 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 19% | 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 Shady Cove, 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 Shady Cove: questions
What is the median household income in Shady Cove?
$57,000 (±$36,899) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,011 across Oregon and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Shady Cove?
12.5%, against 11.9% across Oregon and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Shady Cove?
23 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Oregon and 26 nationally. 20% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Shady Cove work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Medford (30%, 19 mi), Eagle Point (5%, 10 mi), Central Point (4%, 16 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Shady Cove walkable?
Shady Cove is more walkable than 65% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 7.1 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Shady Cove without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Shady Cove, from the people who make the trip.
More of Shady Cove
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.