Photo: Ian Poellet · CC BY-SA 3.0Talent has fewer jobs than working residents: 0.4 for each
Jobs and income earn Talent C+; getting around on foot earns it A+. Employers in Talent report 821 jobs, against 2,178 working residents. Transit is limited for a town this walkable: about 3.0 trips an hour stop near the typical resident at the evening peak, against 19.6 in Portland.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Talent
Talent and Medford trade workers both ways
Medford is the top workplace for Talent residents (36%) and also where the most people who work in Talent come from (26% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Most Talent residents work close to home
67% of working residents have their main job less than 10 miles from home, about two in three. How far ↓
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.
Inside Talent’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Talent is better than 41% of U.S. towns, #83 of 142 in Oregon. Unemployment holds Talent’s grade up (4.0%, U.S. 5.2%); household income pulls it down ($62,543, U.S. $80,734). It also does well on job access by car.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Talent could be anywhere from C− to B+.
36% of working residents work in Medford
Where Talent clocks in
36% of workers
20% 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.
Where in the region Talent works
About 17% 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.
Who commutes out of Talent, and who commutes in
On a workday 2,075 residents head out to work, 103 work right here, and 718 people come in from elsewhere.
About 4,900 people are in Talent on a workday afternoon, 22% 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.
The kinds of work in Talent
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Talent, 2013 → 2023: 878 → 821. 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 Talent’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 21 minutes in Talent
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Talent workers work from home, vs 19% across Oregon. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,671 commuters (the 13% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Talent
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Talent is more walkable than 95% of U.S. towns, #26 of 142 in Oregon. Both inputs place Talent 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 3,083 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 95% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 48% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 3.0 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 75% 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 Talent households have no vehicle (Oregon 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 5% of Talent’s commuters take a bus or train.
Talent next to U.S. towns of 4,400 to 8,500: 2,143rd of 3,349 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Norwood NJ | 5,817 | $178K | 2.8% | 0.9% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 319 | Beavercreek OR | 4,894 | $135K | 4.9% | 2.4% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 382 | Creswell OR | 5,566 | $100K | 4.3% | 0.8% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 474 | Cedar Hills OR | 8,388 | $106K | 2.3% | 5.0% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,141 | Osceola IA | 5,679 | $68K | 6.4% | 6.0% | 44% | C+ |
| 2,142 | Morris MN | 5,150 | $68K | 15.9% | 0.6% | 51% | C+ |
| 2,143 | Talent OR | 6,296 | $63K | 11.7% | 4.0% | 5% | C+ |
| 2,144 | Owosso Township MI | 4,786 | $57K | 13.6% | 3.2% | 8% | C+ |
| 2,145 | West Penn Township PA | 4,616 | $72K | 5.8% | 8.8% | 11% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,349 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Talent, 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 Talent: questions
What is the median household income in Talent?
$62,543 (±$10,630) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,011 across Oregon and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Talent?
11.7%, against 11.9% across Oregon and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Talent?
21 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Oregon and 26 nationally. 13% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Talent work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Medford (36%, 8 mi), Ashland (20%, 5 mi), Central Point (3%, 12 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Talent walkable?
Talent is more walkable than 95% of U.S. towns (Walkability A+): an EPA walkability index of 12.5 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Talent without a car?
5% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 48% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Talent, from the people who make the trip.
More of Talent
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.