Household incomes in Alto are lower than in 71% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 28.4% of residents (Texas 13.8%). The two grades for Alto are D for jobs and income and C− for walkability. About one in seven stay in Alto for work; outside it, Rusk is the main destination (7%, 11 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Alto apart on work
Where Alto’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Alto is better than 9% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Alto’s grade up ($61,688, U.S. $80,734); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (6.4%) is left out: Alto’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, Alto could be anywhere from D− to C+.
Where in the region Alto works
About 37% 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.
How a workday changes Alto
On a workday 342 residents head out to work, 59 work right here, and 392 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 (1.12 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 places Alto commutes to
Where Alto clocks in
7% 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.
A place that makes things: 34% of Alto’s jobs are in goods
451 jobs are based in Alto.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Alto, 2013 → 2023: 584 → 451. 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 Alto’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Alto, about 28 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Alto workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 421 commuters (the 12% who work from home are left out). Across Texas: 83% 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.
In Alto, most people drive to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Alto is more walkable than 20% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.0% across Texas, on an EPA index of 4.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 480 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). 11.0% of Alto households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Alto’s commuters take a bus or train.
Alto is 2,601st of 3,133 U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 32 | Weston TX | 1,140 | $144K | 2.8% | 0.7% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 36 | Randolph AFB TX | 1,240 | $113K | 2.8% | 3.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,599 | Hampton AR | 1,145 | $46K | 13.1% | 6.3% | 7% | D |
| 2,600 | Richfield Springs NY | 1,092 | $56K | 25.6% | 3.1% | 6% | D |
| 2,601 | Alto TX | 1,063 | $62K | 28.4% | 6.4% | 15% | D |
| 2,602 | Westfield WI | 1,317 | $59K | 24.1% | 2.5% | 11% | D |
| 2,603 | Astoria Township IL | 1,188 | $51K | 12.9% | 2.7% | 10% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | 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 Alto, the top three, the last and three more from Texas.
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 Alto: questions
What is the median household income in Alto?
$61,688 (±$37,593) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Alto?
28.4%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Alto?
28 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Alto work?
15% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Rusk (7%, 11 mi), Lufkin (6%, 30 mi), Nacogdoches (5%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Alto walkable?
Alto is more walkable than 20% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 4.8 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Alto without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Alto, from the people who make the trip.
More of Alto
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.