Photo: Who What Where Nguyen Why a/k/a Anonymous Cow · CC BY-SA 3.0Households in Amarillo earn less than those in 65% of U.S. towns
Home is the office for 7% of workers, against 14% across Texas. 15.8% of residents live below the poverty line; Texas has 13.8%. Amarillo grades B− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Amarillo at work: what stands out
Most jobs in Amarillo go to people who live here
Of the 87,831 jobs based in Amarillo, 63% are held by Amarillo residents. In most towns, people from elsewhere hold most of the local jobs. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Amarillo are quick
The average trip to work takes 20 minutes, against 27 across Texas. That’s about 54 hours a year less on the road than the typical Texas 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.
The figures behind Amarillo’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Amarillo is better than 50% of U.S. towns, #297 of 642 in Texas. Job access by car holds Amarillo’s grade up (ahead of 75% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down. It also does well on unemployment.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Amarillo could be anywhere from C+ to B−.
How many people are in Amarillo by day
On a workday 30,460 residents head out to work, 55,467 work right here, and 32,364 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.
Commuting from Amarillo: about 20 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Amarillo workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 91,291 commuters (the 7% 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.
Where Amarillo goes to work
Where Amarillo clocks in
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 Amarillo’s employers do
87,831 jobs are based in Amarillo.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Amarillo, 2013 → 2023: 95,239 → 87,831. 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 Amarillo’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Half of Amarillo commutes less than 5 miles
About 17% 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.
Few in Amarillo walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Amarillo is more walkable than 70% of U.S. towns, #111 of 642 in Texas. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.0% across Texas.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 97,788 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 69% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 15% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 1.6 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 64% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 5.9% of Amarillo households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Amarillo’s commuters take a bus or train.
These are town averages; neighborhoods differ.
For jobs and income, Amarillo is 68th of 133 U.S. towns of 144,000 to 277,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Hempstead NY | 238,982 | $158K | 4.5% | 4.1% | 20% | A |
| 2 | Frisco TX | 236,955 | $150K | 3.6% | 4.6% | 14% | A |
| 3 | Olathe KS | 150,025 | $114K | 5.6% | 2.7% | 26% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 7 | McKinney TX | 236,001 | $124K | 5.7% | 3.7% | 13% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 36 | Irving TX | 257,076 | $82K | 11.0% | 4.5% | 21% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 66 | Denton TX | 169,431 | $76K | 15.8% | 5.1% | 28% | B− |
| 67 | Pomona CA | 147,807 | $79K | 14.3% | 6.6% | 11% | B− |
| 68 | Amarillo TX | 205,130 | $66K | 15.8% | 3.4% | 65% | B− |
| 69 | Port St. Lucie FL | 268,062 | $81K | 9.5% | 6.0% | 17% | B− |
| 70 | Spring Valley NV | 219,187 | $75K | 12.2% | 7.6% | 13% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 133 | Macon-Bibb County GA | 157,556 | $51K | 24.7% | 8.1% | 53% | 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 Amarillo, 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 Amarillo: questions
What is the median household income in Amarillo?
$65,912 (±$1,473) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Amarillo?
15.8%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Amarillo?
20 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Amarillo work?
65% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lubbock (4%, 113 mi), Canyon (3%, 15 mi), Cactus (1%, 59 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Amarillo walkable?
Amarillo is more walkable than 70% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 11.3 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Amarillo without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 15% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Amarillo, from the people who make the trip.
More of Amarillo
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.