Photo: Crazyleaper at English Wikipedia · Public domainHousehold incomes in Blacksburg are among the lowest of any U.S. town
Jobs and income earn Blacksburg D; getting around on foot earns it D. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Below the poverty line: 31.4% of residents; South Carolina has 14.1%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Blacksburg at work: what stands out
Blacksburg’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, Blacksburg is better than 10% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Blacksburg’s grade up (ahead of 54% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($32,092, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (10.5%) is left out: Blacksburg’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Blacksburg stays D.
A place that makes things: 36% of Blacksburg’s jobs are in goods
420 jobs are based in Blacksburg.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Blacksburg, 2013 → 2023: 443 → 420. 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 Blacksburg’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Blacksburg, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 867 residents head out to work, 30 work right here, and 390 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,500 people are in Blacksburg on a workday afternoon, 24% fewer than live here.
0.47 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 2023, primary jobs.
10% of working residents work in Gaffney
Where Blacksburg clocks in
10% of workers
7% of workers
3% 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.
Each way, about 30 minutes from Blacksburg
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Blacksburg workers work from home, vs 12% across South Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 711 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across South Carolina: 86% drive alone, <1% 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 Blacksburg
About 22% 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.
Most trips from Blacksburg start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Blacksburg is more walkable than 10% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 2.4% across South Carolina.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 772 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 7.0% of Blacksburg households have no vehicle (South Carolina 5.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Blacksburg’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Blacksburg ranks: 4,673rd of 5,509 U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,700
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 297 | Pimlico SC | 1,765 | $137K | 4.8% | 0.0% | 0% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 303 | Sullivan's Island SC | 1,961 | $193K | 8.8% | 1.5% | 9% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 427 | Folly Beach SC | 2,081 | $102K | 4.0% | 2.1% | 13% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,671 | Cherokee NC | 2,059 | $56K | 21.3% | 1.6% | 37% | D |
| 4,672 | Earle AR | 1,721 | $32K | 36.2% | 16.9% | 8% | D |
| 4,673 | Blacksburg SC | 1,965 | $32K | 31.4% | 10.5% | 3% | D |
| 4,674 | Big Mound Township IL | 1,713 | $35K | 29.0% | 4.6% | 16% | D |
| 4,675 | Ovid NY | 2,264 | $64K | 22.8% | 4.9% | 7% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,509 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Blacksburg, the top three, the last and three more from South Carolina.
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 Blacksburg: questions
What is the median household income in Blacksburg?
$32,092 (±$9,861) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $69,324 across South Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Blacksburg?
31.4%, against 14.1% across South Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Blacksburg?
30 minutes each way on average, against 26 across South Carolina and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Blacksburg work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Gaffney (10%, 9 mi), Charlotte (7%, 39 mi), Spartanburg (3%, 26 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Blacksburg walkable?
Blacksburg is more walkable than 10% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.5 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Blacksburg without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Blacksburg, from the people who make the trip.
More of Blacksburg
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.