Photo: Daniel Christensen · Public domainLatta’s household incomes are lower than in 90% of U.S. towns
Only 5% work in Latta; the top destination outside it is Dillon (12%, 7 miles). Below the poverty line: 22.4% of residents, next to 14.1% for South Carolina as a whole. Jobs and income earn Latta D; getting around on foot earns it B.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Inside Latta’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Latta is better than 9% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Latta’s grade up (ahead of 34% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($47,985, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (13.4%) is left out: Latta’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, Latta could be anywhere from D to C−.
The daily commute in and out of Latta
On a workday 460 residents head out to work, 26 work right here, and 469 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 (1.02 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.
The towns that employ Latta’s residents
Where Latta clocks in
12% of workers
10% 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.
What the 495 jobs in Latta are
495 jobs are based in Latta.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Latta, 2013 → 2023: 448 → 495. 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 Latta’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 22 minutes to work from Latta
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Latta workers work from home, vs 12% across South Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 588 commuters (the 5% 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.
How many miles Latta commutes
About 28% 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.
In Latta, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Latta is more walkable than 63% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 2.4% across South Carolina, on an EPA index of 5.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 622 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). 15.4% of Latta households have no vehicle (South Carolina 5.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Latta’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700, Latta ranks 4,089th of 4,866 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 372 | Cane Savannah SC | 1,551 | $132K | 4.6% | 11.8% | 0% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 714 | Shell Point SC | 1,439 | $82K | 3.1% | 6.4% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,070 | Elgin SC | 1,675 | $92K | 4.2% | 7.3% | 2% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 4,087 | White Castle LA | 1,585 | $19K | 60.4% | 23.1% | 5% | D |
| 4,088 | Fayette OH | 1,278 | $50K | 24.5% | 1.9% | 4% | D |
| 4,089 | Latta SC | 1,235 | $48K | 22.4% | 13.4% | 5% | D |
| 4,090 | De Kalb TX | 1,455 | $50K | 18.8% | 3.8% | 16% | D |
| 4,091 | Fork Township MI | 1,700 | $56K | 14.7% | 7.7% | 4% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Latta, 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 Latta: questions
What is the median household income in Latta?
$47,985 (±$8,457) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $69,324 across South Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Latta?
22.4%, against 14.1% across South Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Latta?
22 minutes each way on average, against 26 across South Carolina and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Latta work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dillon (12%, 7 mi), Florence (10%, 23 mi), Marion (3%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Latta walkable?
Latta is more walkable than 63% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 5.6 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Latta without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 15% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Latta, from the people who make the trip.
More of Latta
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.