Catholic Presbyterian Church · Photo: Bill Fitzpatrick · CC BY-SA 3.0Great Falls ranks among the lowest-earning U.S. towns by household income
31.1% of residents are in poverty, against 14.1% across South Carolina. Measured by household income, Great Falls is among the lowest-earning towns in the country. The two grades for Great Falls are D for jobs and income and D for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Great Falls apart on work
Great Falls makes and builds things
69% of the jobs based in Great Falls are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Great Falls residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 25%. The jobs ↓
Great Falls’ biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Great Falls is Rock Hill, 26 miles away as the crow flies. 11% of working residents (77) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Great Falls workers spend longer getting to work
The average trip takes 34 minutes each way, against 26 across South Carolina. Over a year that’s about 261 hours of commuting, 61 more than the state’s typical 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 717 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Great Falls
On income, poverty and job access, Great Falls is better than 6% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Great Falls’ grade up (ahead of 37% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($30,458, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (3.6%) is left out: Great Falls’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, Great Falls could be anywhere from D− to D.
Great Falls works in goods: 69% of its jobs
595 jobs are based in Great Falls.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Great Falls, 2013 → 2023: 600 → 595. 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 Great Falls’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many miles Great Falls commutes
About 25% 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.
Each way, about 34 minutes from Great Falls
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 11 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Great Falls workers work from home, vs 12% across South Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 546 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.
Who leaves Great Falls for work, and who comes in
On a workday 687 residents head out to work, 30 work right here, and 565 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.83 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
11% of working residents work in Rock Hill
Where Great Falls clocks in
11% of workers
9% of workers
6% 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.
Great Falls is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Great Falls is more walkable than 8% 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 595 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). 6.1% of Great Falls households have no vehicle (South Carolina 5.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Great Falls’ commuters take a bus or train.
Where Great Falls sits among U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,600
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 272 | Pimlico SC | 1,765 | $137K | 4.8% | 0.0% | 0% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 277 | Sullivan's Island SC | 1,961 | $193K | 8.8% | 1.5% | 9% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 393 | Folly Beach SC | 2,081 | $102K | 4.0% | 2.1% | 13% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,763 | Eupora MS | 2,116 | $54K | 23.0% | 18.8% | 23% | D |
| 4,764 | Collins MS | 2,232 | $38K | 38.3% | 5.3% | 24% | D |
| 4,765 | Great Falls SC | 1,960 | $30K | 31.1% | 3.6% | 4% | D |
| 4,766 | Limestone ME | 1,487 | $50K | 16.4% | 6.8% | 23% | D |
| 4,767 | Kenockee Township MI | 2,376 | $62K | 22.7% | 14.0% | 2% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,234 | 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 Great Falls, 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 Great Falls: questions
What is the median household income in Great Falls?
$30,458 (±$13,215) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $69,324 across South Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Great Falls?
31.1%, against 14.1% across South Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Great Falls?
34 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 Great Falls work?
4% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Rock Hill (11%, 26 mi), Charlotte (9%, 44 mi), Lancaster (6%, 13 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Great Falls walkable?
Great Falls is more walkable than 8% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.2 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Great Falls without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Great Falls, from the people who make the trip.
More of Great Falls
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.