Photo: Bill shannon 2001 at English Wikipedia · Public domainWare Shoals has lower household incomes than 98% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 2% of workers, against 12% across South Carolina. 38.2% of residents are in poverty, where South Carolina as a whole has 14.1%. For jobs and income Ware Shoals is better than 4% of U.S. towns (D−); for walkability it is more walkable than 22% of U.S. towns (C−).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The work figures that set Ware Shoals apart
Many jobs in Ware Shoals pay little
34% of the jobs based in Ware Shoals pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. The jobs ↓
Fewer than half of Ware Shoals workers earn over $40,000 a year
44% of Ware Shoals’ working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 18% earn $1,250 a month or less. The jobs ↓
Few Ware Shoals workers work from home
Only 2% of workers work from home, against 12% across South Carolina. Almost everyone here travels to a job. 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 692 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Ware Shoals’ grade explained
Job access by car holds Ware Shoals’ grade up (ahead of 31% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (2.4%) is left out: Ware Shoals’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, Ware Shoals could be anywhere from D− to D.
The kinds of work in Ware Shoals
376 jobs are based in Ware Shoals.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ware Shoals, 2013 → 2023: 247 → 376. 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 Ware Shoals’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 28 minutes each way for Ware Shoals’ commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ware Shoals workers work from home, vs 12% across South Carolina. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 710 commuters (the 2% 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.
Ware Shoals by day and by night
On a workday 675 residents head out to work, 17 work right here, and 359 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,400 people are in Ware Shoals on a workday afternoon, 18% fewer than live here.
0.54 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.
17% of working residents work in Greenwood
Where Ware Shoals clocks in
17% of workers
4% 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.
How far Ware Shoals’ workers travel
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 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Most of Ware Shoals commutes by car
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 722 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). 17.9% of Ware Shoals households have no vehicle (South Carolina 5.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ware Shoals’ commuters take a bus or train.
Ware Shoals next to U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 273 | 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 |
| … | |||||||
| 385 | Folly Beach SC | 2,081 | $102K | 4.0% | 2.1% | 13% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 5,362 | Edmore MI | 1,274 | $54K | 32.2% | 2.7% | 9% | D− |
| 5,363 | Union MS | 2,007 | $45K | 31.7% | 8.3% | 11% | D− |
| 5,364 | Ware Shoals SC | 1,733 | $37K | 38.2% | 2.4% | 2% | D− |
| 5,365 | Olton TX | 1,913 | $46K | 18.4% | 0.0% | 26% | D− |
| 5,366 | Griggsville Township IL | 1,240 | $44K | 20.4% | 3.8% | 9% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,760 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Ware Shoals, 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 Ware Shoals: questions
What is the median household income in Ware Shoals?
$36,622 (±$6,687) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $69,324 across South Carolina and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ware Shoals?
38.2%, against 14.1% across South Carolina and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ware Shoals?
28 minutes each way on average, against 26 across South Carolina and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ware Shoals work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Greenwood (17%, 14 mi), Abbeville (4%, 16 mi), Greenville (3%, 32 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ware Shoals walkable?
Ware Shoals is more walkable than 22% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 5.8 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ware Shoals without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 18% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ware Shoals, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ware Shoals
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.