Photo: Renelibrary · CC BY-SA 4.0Household incomes in Big Sandy trail those of 95% of U.S. towns
Jobs and income earn Big Sandy D; getting around on foot earns it B−. Poverty touches 29.4% of residents, next to 13.8% for Texas as a whole. Home is the office for 5% of workers (Texas 14%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Big Sandy
Why Big Sandy gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Big Sandy is better than 10% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Big Sandy’s grade up (ahead of 51% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (15.1%) is left out: Big Sandy’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, Big Sandy could be anywhere from D to C−.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Big Sandy
About 30% 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.
Who works in Big Sandy, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 477 residents head out to work, 38 work right here, and 572 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 (1.18 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 Longview
Where Big Sandy clocks in
11% of workers
11% of workers
4% 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.
Mostly health care, schools and offices in Big Sandy
610 jobs are based in Big Sandy.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Big Sandy, 2013 → 2023: 665 → 610. 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 Big Sandy’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 31 minutes each way, longer than most of Texas
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Big Sandy workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 542 commuters (the 5% 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.
For most of Big Sandy, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Big Sandy is more walkable than 48% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Big Sandy near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 570 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). 3.8% of Big Sandy households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Big Sandy’s commuters take a bus or train.
Big Sandy next to U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800: 4,425th of 5,400 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 29 | Rollingwood TX | 1,466 | $240K | 4.6% | 2.4% | 3% | A+ |
| 30 | Oak Leaf TX | 1,684 | $132K | 2.8% | 5.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,423 | Morris OK | 1,340 | $59K | 16.3% | 4.3% | 7% | D |
| 4,424 | Gold Hill OR | 1,317 | $56K | 22.0% | 1.2% | 4% | D |
| 4,425 | Big Sandy TX | 1,339 | $41K | 29.4% | 15.1% | 7% | D |
| 4,426 | Twisp WA | 1,126 | $60K | 13.3% | 9.9% | 15% | D |
| 4,427 | Kathio Township MN | 1,568 | $63K | 25.1% | 15.8% | 42% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Big Sandy, 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 Big Sandy: questions
What is the median household income in Big Sandy?
$41,467 (±$13,168) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Big Sandy?
29.4%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Big Sandy?
31 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Big Sandy work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Longview (11%, 21 mi), Tyler (11%, 22 mi), Gilmer (4%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Big Sandy walkable?
Big Sandy is more walkable than 48% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 6.6 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Big Sandy without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Big Sandy, from the people who make the trip.
More of Big Sandy
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.